


Reconstruction, Redaction, and Reading the Record

by GwendolynGrace



Series: Rewritten History [2]
Category: 18th & 19th Century CE RPF, 18th Century CE RPF, Hamilton - Miranda, Historical RPF
Genre: 1990s, Bisexual Male Character, Canon Era, Epistolary, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, HIV/AIDS, Historical Accuracy, Historical Inaccuracy, Internalized Homophobia, JCH is a bit of a jerk, M/M, Miscarriage, Modern Era, Multi-Era, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Sorry Not Sorry, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 18:30:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 34,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5344241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GwendolynGrace/pseuds/GwendolynGrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years after her father's death, Frances Laurens tries to recover Hamilton's copies of John Laurens' letters. Eliza tries to help, and finds more than she bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Ladies' Correspondence

**Author's Note:**

> Combining two prompts from the [Hamilton Prompts](http://hamiltonprompts.tumblr.com/) tumblr. 
> 
> The first prompt is a request for anything with Frances Laurens.
> 
> This fic will also be heavily based on this prompt:
>
>> After Hamilton dies, Eliza goes through his papers and letters and finds that he kept all the letters he received from Laurens during the war and that even after Laurens died, Hamilton kept on writing letters to Laurens.
> 
> I had already flagged it as something I wanted to address. Then the Frances request came in and the two perfectly dovetailed in my mind. In a later chapter there will be some bits heavily influenced from a comment by Publius Esquire, which speculated about how JC Hamilton must have felt when he found the Laurens' correspondence and decided to protect his mother from it ([here](http://publius-esquire.tumblr.com/post/132761172435/re-i-must-not-publish-the-whole-of-this-i-was)). More on this topic in [this post](http://john-laurens.tumblr.com/post/134191339347/so-we-know-that-john-church-perma-censored-one-of), too.
> 
> There are three chapters in the historical era. The final chapter remixes the scenario 200 years later.

**To Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton from Frances-Eleanor Laurens** [Mepkin Plantation, South Carolina, September 8, 1792]

First, I pray that you will forgive the imposition of my writing to you without a proper introduction; my aunt assures me that owing to the fellowship enjoyed between your excellent Husband and my Father, you will not think it too forward a beginning to correspondence. 

Second, please allow me on behalf of my aunts and grandfather to extend our heartiest compliments to you and Col. Hamilton on the recent birth of your son. It is a blessed event for which you must have long hoped and prayed and we were all glad to hear of it.

But I am certain that by now you are most curious as to the reason for my letter. I write to you, one woman to another, because my grandfather wisely prohibits me from sending a letter directly to Secretary Hamilton. Apart from the great duties which must necessarily preoccupy his time, and the happy distractions which you and your family must present to him to divert him from his appointed service to our Nation, against which the addition of my small request would surely both come as an unwelcome nuisance and perhaps even a distressful reminder of an old loss of comradeship, it would be indecorous, presumptuous and I daresay altogether too bold to address my inquiry to your Husband, without first claiming the privilege of acquainting myself with you. In this way, you may judge for yourself the merits of my petition and the innocence of my interest.

I beg your pardon, but I have no way to know the extent to which you were aware of my father's rôle in the War and his appointment to General Washington's staff. I can only assume you know more than I! But in brief, my esteemed Mrs. Hamilton, you must know that he and your husband were both aides to His Excellency at the same time. These were the earliest years of my life, and while I could not be more proud of my father's contributions to our present freedoms, I honestly must say that I had no way to know about them until long after their occurrence, for I was born in England after his return to the colonies. My mother removed us to France, once, in hope of my father joining us there--but as accident and ill luck would have it, she was unable to intercept him. His patriotic zeal was so great that it drove him to return to the front before he had the chance to see me or my mother. For myself, I have only his portraits and the loving reports of his sisters, brother, and father to inform my thoughts.

It is for that reason that I write, Mrs. Hamilton. I have been attempting to collect additional information about my father: his heroism, his accomplishments in the War, his hopes for this young country and the direction of manumission, and most particularly, anything he might have wished for his obedient and loving daughter. From my grandfather I have teased certain details and not a little of my father's correspondence; but some of his comments have led me to pursue those members of his military family who survive and might be able to provide additional information that would allow me to gain a more complete picture of my paternal roots. 

Knowing your husband for a prolific and skilled Author, I wondered if he might be willing to part with or have copies made of any letters shared between himself and my father. I asked my grandfather to provide a letter of introduction and to inclose a letter from me, but he refused. Naturally I could not make such a request directly without such an introduction, but I thought, perhaps, the heart of a woman would understand what a man's might not, and that you might be willing to implore him on my behalf. However, I do realize that mine is a trifling matter and not to be preferred over more important Affairs of State. There, again, I rely upon your excellent and present Judgment to determine the right time to broach the subject.

I pray you will commend me and my case to your Husband. Blessings upon you and your family, and felicitations for the safe arrival of the newest little Hamilton.

Your most humble and reverent admirer,

Frances-Eleanor Laurens

 

~*~

 **To Miss Frances-Eleanor Laurens from Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton** [Albany, September 20, 1792]

My Dear Miss Laurens,

I had the pleasure of receiving your favor of 8th Inst., but have until now lacked the opportunity to share it with my Hamilton. I deeply regret to say that while he was visibly and professedly moved by your request, he was not entirely as helpful as you might wish. He said only that for the majority of their acquaintance, they were in constant company, and that thus the only time they had need to correspond at length was while one or the other of them was from camp. I asked if he had kept your father's letters; he replied that your father was, according to his estimation, rather stingy with pen, ink, and paper, and that on top of this, more than half their post was lost along the road to enemy and calamity alike. Of the remainder, he said only that in his recollection they had nothing of interest for a young lady of fifteen. In short, my poor girl, he was less than forthcoming.

I am sorry I could not provide further assistance, but I do not wish you to think it due in any way to disapproval or displeasure at making your acquaintance. Rather, I implore you by all means to make free to write to me again, and tell me of yourself. I, too, never had the pleasure of meeting your father, though I can report that my husband spoke of him fondly and that the others of their company whose introduction I have pleasantly made also have in the past mentioned the name of John Laurens with equal measure of love and regret that his life was cut so tragically short. I assume you have made similar requests of all their number, but if you should wish an entree to any of them, please consider me a willing ally in your quest. We wives and daughters rarely if ever are allowed to breach the veil of men at war, and even years after the conflict, there comes a time when the menfolk are gathered, the stories are told, and a wise woman knows to linger in the parlor until the moment of reminiscence has passed. Nonetheless, I believe Cols. McHenry, Harrison, and Meade would all be willing to share with you their recollections of your father, and may have more tangible evidence to pass on to you. It is a great pity that the Marquis is in no position at present to entertain your inquiries! I am sure he would far rather have the leisure to write to a charming young lady than be in his current circumstances! 

But to return to more pleasant thoughts, I entreat you, do not omit me from your future correspondence. Tell me of your progress and of any other service that can be provided by your very sympathetic and devoted 

Eliza Hamilton

 

~*~

 **To Mrs Elizabeth Hamilton from Frances-Eleanor Laurens** [Mepkin, October 14, 1792]

Dear Mrs. Hamilton,

I am most indebted to you for the favor of your reply on the 20th Ult. and I thank you for your kind invitation to write again. Alas, I have little to tell you about my life, since I am only at the beginning of it. Or nearly at its beginning. My grandfather frets that I am rapidly approaching the age where I ought to marry, but there I have an excuse. I tell him that until I meet one as kind and attentive as he, I shall never be able to transfer my heart. Nonetheless, I am sure I have nothing to say about my daily existence that would interest someone like yourself, who has all of New York and Philadelphia at her feet, and a full and happy life of her own. I will have to content myself with additional questions about your health and the health of the dear little one, as well as all your other children. I hope they do well and bring you nothing but joy.

My Aunts Martha and Mary were very happy to hear that you felt, as we do, that there was merit in my requests. My grandfather was perhaps not so enthusiastic, but allows that so long as my writing is not a trouble to you, I may continue. He asks to commend him to your husband and wish him well in his pursuits. 

However, as pleased as we three ladies were by your willingness to persist, I confess I was as much disheartened by the paucity of Col. Hamilton's response. Has he really no letters at all? You are quite correct that I have also taken the liberty of writing to many other of my father's comrades, particularly those whose families are known to me or to my Aunts, and all who have thus far replied have assured me that Col. Hamilton was of all my father's friends the closest and best. If I seem overanxious in my entreaties, it is only that I am surprised he would not therefore sympathize with them. You say he was moved, but could he truly not have what letters he has copied for me? Or if he has not kept the sweet reminders of their esteem, then do you think he might at some time be so kind as to share with me some reminiscences of their time together? 

I am ashamed to beg so ungraciously for these scraps of information. I know the Secretary is an extraordinarily busy man, and I have no wish to irritate him or divert him from more pressing concerns. Mine is purely the curiosity and ambition of a daughter who yearns for any and every word that will contribute to the esteem and regard with which she has been taught to view her lauded and lamented parent. Do you think he would consent to write to me directly, if it would not pain him to do so, and tell me stories he recalls? 

Forgive me. I ought not to press for answers. You have been most kind to importune Col. Hamilton on my behalf once already. I must not impose further on your goodwill. Instead I will conclude by hoping that you have been neither too bored nor too troubled by my prattling, and assure you that whatever the circumstances I remain

Your humble and obedient servant,

Fanny Laurens

~*~

 **To Miss Frances-Eleanor Laurens from Mrs. Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton** [Philadelphia, November 10, 1792]

Dearest Fanny,

If we are to continue corresponding then I insist you must call me Eliza. Your favor of the 14th Ultimo, I am afraid, went rather a little bit astray, as we had removed to Philadelphia while your missive was en route to Albany. Then, if you will believe it, a storm delayed its delivery further while the roads were too flooded for passing. It finally arrived with the other forwarded post just three days ago. I profess your entreaty caused me no vexation apart from that heartfelt sympathy and abject sorrow that my earlier reply was so disappointing to you. I resolved at once to plead your case to that attorney in whose power it rests to relieve you of your distress.

My dear girl, I wish I could adequately describe to you the anguish your father's death caused my husband. He grieved terribly for the loss of one of America's finest sons, not only because it deprived us of, in his words, a paragon of this country's ideals, but for the more personal, intimate bereavement it signified. If you know anything about Hamilton, you must know he is profuse in his verbacity. Yet on hearing of your father's untimely demise, I must tell you, his words failed him. I know of only a handful of times when he has even ever mentioned it, and then only to others who served with them both. Even now, ten years on, he finds it a painful topic. If I thought I could induce my Hamilton to write to you, believe me, my dear child, I would do so, but I fear it is something he may never consent to do.

It is in no way my wish to erect walls or barricades in your quest for more tales of your father. In a small way, I hope it provides you with a measure of comfort, for you may safely conclude by the way his death affected others that he was well-loved and highly regarded by all who knew him. Not least, my husband, who in his life was used to call him his dearest friend.

I mentioned that we had removed to Philadelphia. This change in circumstance was occasioned in order to bring our eldest, Philip, to school. At the same time, I have brought our daughter, Angelica, and her brothers, Alexander, James, and of course the baby, back to the city so that we could remain together with Hamilton as he resumes his work. Angelica is ordinarily the happiest girl in Christendom but she currently suffers at the absence of her dearest elder brother, from whom she has been used to be inseparable. I have lately promised new frocks in the hope of convincing her that Philip going to school is not, indeed, a sign of the world's ending. She adores her Papa, however, and that we have come to a place of greater proximity to him is in itself some consolation. She was also quite intrigued when I explained that I am writing to the daughter of one of her Papa's war comrades, and begs to be given leave to write you a letter herself, if you are willing to receive it.

My sons Alexander and James have no time for women's correspondence, but they are both curious about South Carolina. I have told them it is warm, even at this time of the year, when our streets are regularly wet with rain and blown by cold wind off the coast. Little John Church, as we have baptized him, does tolerably well apart from a tendency to fuss when left alone in his cradle. I am assured it is commonplace for babes of his age, though I cannot say that any others of our progeny were so unhappy when not in someone's arms. Unluckily for him it is a state in which he is likely to find himself frequently, for his brothers, at six and four, demand constant attention. 

I have gratefully passed along your excellent grandfather's greetings to Hamilton and he returns them in kind and with the utmost of respect. I hope that the unhappy news I have for you regarding your research on your father does not cause you to long enjoin from replying again to 

Your affectionate and sympathetic friend,

Eliza Hamilton

~*~

 **To Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton from Miss Frances Laurens** [Mepkin, December 21, 1792]

My dear Eliza,

I must tell you I started this letter three times over, convincing myself it was all right to address you so informally as you asked! I thank you for the compliment. It feels ever so grown-up to write to someone like you and address her by name.

As you see, I have not resolved to withdraw my replies, but I hope you will ascribe to my delay in writing nothing more than the truth, which you have no doubt read in the papers before now. Two weeks ago, my esteemed grandfather met his heavenly reward. I pray God he is out of pain and reunited in happy peace with my father and uncle, for whom he cried most piteously at the end. If God is merciful, surely, they are now again whole, and healthy, and dwelling in the sunshine of His beneficence. 

When your favor of the 10th Ult. arrived, I am afraid, my aunts and I were already caring for him in the finality of his days, and it was this occupation, and no other, that kept me from writing back immediately. I confess I had begun to wonder whether my own letter had caused offense, but rest assured that, although I cannot say I am content with the answer, I do understand the reticence with which you must have provided it. I shall seek my information elsewhere, and trouble you and your excellent husband no more with impertinent requests.

Your Angelica's request, however, is anything but impertinent! Of course, she must write to me! Please tell her I am eager to hear anything she may have to say. She must be eight now, is that correct? Will you kindly ask her to report to me her spoils at Christmas, and tell me in confidence whether they meet her satisfaction? I should greatly like to read her observations, also, about her brothers. Having none of my own, I have always wondered what it must be like to be a sister among brothers, and a lone one at that. Somehow I suspect that your darling Angelica is equal to the challenge.

For my part, little has changed, on the surface, except that with my grandfather's passing, it seems, the very air ought to feel different. The sky may as well turn a different color, for all that the world makes sense without him in it. We are comforted by knowing that he is at peace, but the emptiness of Mepkin is without parallel. Were it up to me, I would invite all our friends, no matter how far away, to come celebrate the New Year, just to make the house ring with the sound of cheerful voices in conversation or song. Aunt Patsy says we must do nothing of the kind, of course, and may host no parties while in mourning. Of course she's entirely correct, and never would we wish to pay Grandfather anything other than the appropriate respect. Still, Mepkin is a place that was meant for people to share, and it strikes me as sad that our mourning must come at this time of year when others are making their most merry.

My grandfather had two final wishes. First is that we collect his papers and correspondence for posterity, which Aunt Patsy was already working on and now Aunt Polly and I are, too. His second was that I marry. So of course, I must find an appropriate husband. I am not certain how one is to go about this, when we cannot hold parties and my ability to accept invitations will be constrained for some time to come--but since I am equally certain he did not mean _immediately_ , I conclude that I have some time to carry out that last instruction before I am judged remiss. After all, I am not even sixteen! 

On the other hand, should the search for a suitable mate bring me to Philadelphia, might I have the pleasure of calling on you in person? I would dearly love to meet you and your family. I promise, I shall make no attempt to harangue Col. Hamilton on subjects he would rather leave to rest!

Whether or not Providence gives us occasion to meet, my dear Mrs. Hamilton--Eliza, I should say--I hope we shall continue to write. Even though our correspondence has been brief, and disrupted at that, I eagerly look forward to hearing from you again. Until then I am

Your friend,

Fanny

Speaking of your family, please will you tell your boys that South Carolina is certainly warm, though we had a frost two nights ago and we have been lighting fires at night since mid-November. I shall inclose a sketch of our gardens and would they perhaps like a more detailed drawing of our foliage? I have a love for drawing and would gladly supply them with a few examples of the bougainvillea and some of our lilies. We also have some arrowheads flowering nearby which, when I am again at liberty to ramble, I plan to seek out and sketch. - F. L.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I mentioned, I plan three chapters. Chapter Two will more fully address the Eliza portion of the prompt. Chapter Three should pull it all together. In theory.


	2. Discovery and Disclosure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is not a happy chapter. Sorry, but did you really think it would be? Our poor woobies, they are not in a good place. Triggers for miscarriage, marital fighting, and other unpleasant things of that nature. I promise it will be okay, though, in the end.  
> #Sorry/not sorry.

**Philadelphia, 1793**

It bothered her that he would not have pity on the poor girl. Of _course_ it bothered her--it was uncharacteristically parsimonious for a man with her Hamilton's sense of charity. It was not even as if having the letters copied would cost him a great deal of money. If he didn't wish to take the time himself, he could send them to a clerk or even ask Philip to complete one or two as an exercise over the holiday. The boy would have been just as interested for a glimpse of his father's war efforts as Fanny was to receive the coveted paragraphs. She even offered to copy them herself. Yet Hamilton's refusals had been absolute. In fact, they were unlike any temper she had ever seen in him. Where on other matters he might grow bellicose and launch into an onslaught of rapid, heated argument, or conceal his annoyance with drollery, when she raised her courage to tell him about Frances' request, and ask him if he could not help the child, he grew deathly quiet and still. His eyes may as well have been shuttered, for all the emotion they showed her. He had remained in silent reverie for so long that she had had to prompt him for an answer. "No, Betsey," he had said at last. "There is nothing for her in this quarter." He had then left the room, and closed or changed the subject any time afterward when she had brought it up again. And that, unfortunately, was that.

Still, she encouraged Angelica--and their own Fanny, who had recently returned from an excursion with her brother's family--to write to Miss Laurens and she resolved to continue her own correspondence with the vivacious young lady. Meanwhile, she thought about what else she could do to help.

It was 1793, however, and Hamilton suddenly had much larger concerns. War between France and Britain had bubbled to a head, and the cabinet had called a session to determine America's course of action. Alexander spent so many long hours at the President's House that she sometimes feared he would forget to come home at day's end. To her surprise, he never failed to do so, nor to carve out time for the children and herself when at last he stepped over their threshold. 

Then there were the nights, when he was _most_ attentive. So much so, in fact, that it did not take long for her to wake with familiar queasiness in the mornings, or to note that her courses were absent two months running. 

She did not tell him right away, however. She had lost pregnancies before.

But perhaps the thought of yet another child was what impelled her to see what she could find on her own. She considered how her own brood would feel if they were deprived of a father, and how they would naturally read anything and everything he had left behind. In their case, there was no shortage. But Laurens, she feared, had been far less prolific and had had far less time to amass a portfolio to inform his biography. Eliza longed to give Frances _something_ to shed light on Laurens' friendships. And there must be _something_ in Hamilton's possession that would elucidate that relationship.

Alexander had been intractible on the subject of providing Frances with any scrap of her father's writing--even claimed that he had very few mementos himself. Yet Eliza knew for a fact that he had never thrown away a letter in his life, nor even a single receipt. Moreover, while he rarely bothered to organize his personal papers (other than by some obscure, occult system that cohered only in the recesses of his mind), he was generally more meticulous with correspondence from others. The Laurens letters must be somewhere in his filing drawers.

So one fine, warm day in early spring, 1793, when the nurse had taken all six children (including Philip, home now on a holiday) to the park, and Eliza had several hours before the housekeeper would require anything of her, she entered the sanctum of her husband's study to look for them. 

She simply intended to find the letters, skim through a few, and perhaps even copy out the more salient contents into a fresh compilation for Miss Laurens. She thought she knew just what Alexander had meant when he quipped that the contents were not fit for a fifteen-year-old girl, but surely she was stern enough to withstand the sorts of banter men sent to each other, even soldiers. If the letters were overfull of military intelligence, no longer of any interest, then that only made her job all the more straightforward. She could skip all that and concentrate on the personal remarks. With luck, she might even get through the whole business before the children returned from their play. Alex need never learn of the incursion.

She should have known it would not be so easy. The letters were not in the files, neither under L nor J, nor H for his father, Henry. She remembered that the Laurens family had a habit of bestowing nicknames, and checked J again (now looking for "Jack") to no avail. She looked under the few files he had organized by date, then under W ("Washington" or "War"), then, painstakingly, through the entire catalogue, folder by folder, and saw nothing that answered her criteria. Not to be deterred, she checked the drawers and pigeonholes of his desk, the bookshelves, even the sideboard cabinets where he kept a stocked bar for visitors and clients. 

It occurred to her that since the letters were so old, they might not even be in the Philadelphia house. They may be in their New York home, in which case, it could be months before another opportunity would present. Then another thought struck her, which was that he might have kept them instead with his old army trunk. And that _was_ here, she knew, in the attics.

With new energy, she climbed to the top floor of the house and quickly located the small, rectangular chest. She had to move a few boxes around, for it sat on the dusty floor, but before she had finished clearing space to work, she saw that he had locked it. Probably to keep the children from pilfering its treasures, she mused. They were always searching for parts of the house to explore and transform into landscapes for their play. It made sense. _Would the key be in his dressing room or in the office?_ she wondered.

She hesitated a moment. To rifle through pages in open drawers was one thing; to obtain a key to the trunk, and open it, was another level of violation. Reminding herself that this betrayal was of the most minor kind, and that it was done not to cause him pain, but rather to spare him distress and in no small way to relieve another's longing, she pushed forward. Back down the stairs she trod. She would check the dressing room first, if only because it was closer than going all the way down to the study again.

No sooner had she gone into the room than she remembered seeing a small ring of keys in Hamilton's top right desk drawer. Certain that this was the thing she sought, she set off down the corridor and back to the next flight of steps. By the time she had retrieved the keys and reached the bottom of the broad stair, with its many landings and flights, she was puffing for breath. She told herself to slow down, take a breather, but it was growing later in the day. Any moment the children would come home, or the housekeeper would want instruction on dinner, and her window would close. Determinedly, she shifted herself along, back to the very top of the house.

The lock eased open. She had laid a cloth down on the dusty floor, and now knelt before the leather trunk to lift its lid. Alexander's things were carefully placed inside: a cockaded hat; his green aide's sash; his old buff coat with brass buttons (two of which had come loose somewhere along the way); a few other mementos whose significance she could only guess. A copy of his commission, rolled and tied, was in the tray that sat on top of his uniform. There was also a copy of the oath he had signed. But no other papers. No packets, no bundles. Not even her own letters.

Eliza sat back on her heels. The absence of her own correspondence convinced her that the letters, if any letters there were, must be in New York. She placed everything back just as it had been, closed and locked the trunk, and slowly, feeling very tired, descended to her bedroom. She desired nothing more than to lie down for a while after her search. She knew she had to put the keys back but she would have time for that before he came home. 

On her way to the bedroom, she took one last look in Hamilton's dressing room. Her eye fell upon another leather trunk at the foot of the narrow bed, which stood against the long interior wall. Its curved lid was encased in several straps, and it was large--larger than the one in the attic, but not wider than the bed's footboard. This was the trunk Hamilton used when he traveled, kept handy in case need demanded. It, too, had a padlock. 

She had never noticed that he kept it locked, even when he was home. With a flash of insight, Eliza rushed to it and dropped to her knees, key ring in hand. The fourth key she tried released the padlock. She unbuckled the straps and opened the trunk. It was three-quarters full of neat little bundles of paper.

Some were bound with twine; others with ribbons or folded into packets, some with a page surrounding them as an envelope, and still others enveloped and sealed. One such sealed bundle read, "J R - _To be forwarded to Oliver Wolcott Junr. Esq._ " A few others had a note or label affixed as well. A tied bundle appeared to contain some correspondence from the war. She found letters in her own hand, and in Angelica's. And there, near the top to one side, was the goal she sought. It was tied, she noted, smiling, with a blue queue ribbon, to which he had pinned a tiny cravat pin with a glittering jewel for its stud. A small card, inscribed in Alex's hand with the initials, "J L," was tucked under the ribbon.

She picked it up, weighing it in her palm. The bundle was thick, stuffed with pages. _If this is only about half their correspondence_ , she thought absently, _then they wrote far more often than Alex claimed_. Still, it didn't seem entirely unlikely--they had, after all, been coordinating troops on behalf of the Commander-in-Chief. But it was more than she had expected, for certain, and she revised her calculations about how long it might take her to compile the contents for Fanny. What time was it now? She might have to take a quick inventory today and leave the copying for another time. She thumbed the corners of the neatly folded stationery and wondered where to start. Her knees ached. With some difficulty, she pulled herself up and sat on the little bed, ignoring a cramp in her side as she did. Too much up and down the stairs, she told herself. She promised herself that the following day, she would take more rest.

Carefully, so as not to forget how the bundle had been fastened, she unpinned the cravat pin and untied the ribbon. After pinning the stick into a bit of the ribbon, she set it aside and turned the pile upside-down, reasoning that the oldest letters would be on the bottom. She unfolded the first letter and scanned its pages. Laurens, it seemed, had been sent on an errand and was merely reporting to headquarters, through Alexander, that he had arrived safely. There was a brief description of the conditions of the camp he was visiting, some intelligence to provide to His Excellency General Washington, and the usual badinage she would have expected from a military man to his comrade. The second letter was sent from the same camp. Its tone was similar but seemed to say that he missed his friends, and particularly Alexander, while on his mission. Next was a letter he had written while in South Carolina. From the look of it, he was attempting to commission a battalion of Negro soldiers and, not surprisingly, finding it a difficult prospect. Fourth was a copy of a letter in Alexander's hand, importuning Laurens not to lose heart. 

She quickly realized the letters were not in any sort of order. In the middle of a flurry of correspondence regarding General Lee's court martial--and dimly she recalled hearing about Laurens' affair of honor with the former General--there was a letter from Hamilton to Laurens that had been written at least six months prior. Then she arrived at a few letters from when Laurens had been captured. She quite certainly remembered Hamilton's dismay that when they were wed, the only friend of his who could get leave to attend had been Col. McHenry. Laurens, she knew, had at that time been confined to Pennsylvania. Here was her husband again bolstering his friend, a few weeks after their own marriage had begun. _I can see why he would not have wished Fanny to read_ these, she thought, on finding a fully despondent note from Laurens--indeed, almost suicidal--and an answering letter from Hamilton expressing alarm and concern. _She is too young to understand how hopeless a prisoner of war must feel, and would only have seen her father in a cowardly light._

And then…. The next letter was another from her Hamilton to Laurens. Only it had been written long before he was truly _her_ Hamilton--several months before they ever met, in fact. She read it hungrily, for he prescribed for himself in most amusing terms the sort of wife he desired. And the sort of attributes he believed he brought to the marriage bed! _Oh, Alexander_ , she thought with a giggle, _I can well believe you would not want a young girl to read about_ this _side of you!_ She read it over again, comparing the qualities to her own and finding herself far superior to the sketched out, imaginary female. If only she could let him know what she knew, she could have teased him mercilessly!

Then she read it over a third time. Her stomach heaved unexpectedly.

She flipped through the packet, unfolding the notes, scanning dates quickly, piecing them into a chronology. She read several more, careful to keep them stacked, but assembling more than just the timeline. At last she picked out another letter--this one also from Alexander, and written _after_ she and he had been courting. More explicit--as some of the others had also been. A phrase in the letter struck her. It was eerily familiar, similar to something they had once written to each other. Without thinking, she dove back into the trunk for the packet of her love letters, and pages fluttered to the floor around her skirts.

"Oh, bother!" she said softly. In her haste to compare the texts, she had forgotten that there were still little stacks of letters in her lap, where she had been trying to keep them organized. She knelt to collect them all, knowing she would never be able to reassemble them in the same order--since there had been no order in the first place.

As she picked up the sheaves, she glanced at one of the less battered ones. The date read September 26, 1784. It was the day after Angelica had been born. 

"That can't be right," Eliza said to herself. John Laurens had been dead for two years when their daughter came into the world. She scanned the remaining pages on the floor, quickly flipping them over to read the dates. October 1784. May 1785. 1788, 1790 (that one began, _Eliza lives, thank God, but she lost the babe_ ), 1791--dozens of letters, it seemed, that Alexander had written to a ghost. 

And then there were the three or four letters between them she had already found--not many, compared to their larger correspondence, and not all flowery phrases, but enough. Enough.

She sat on the floor of his dressing room for a long time, surrounded by the evidence of an infidelity that she did not even know how to name. She could not even decide whether it _needed_ one. Did it matter? He loved her, loved the children--there was no doubt of this. He had never given her reason to doubt it. She knew some unhappy wives who could not say as much. And Laurens, however much Alexander might miss him, was dead. It would do no good, and potentially much harm, to expose her knowledge to Hamilton now. Nonetheless, she sat in dumbstruck confusion while the clock ticked and chimed the hours.

Eventually, she heard the clatter of the children on the stairs, in the hallway, and their nanny depositing them all in the nursery for their afternoon lesson. John would be wanting to be fed; dinner would follow soon after. And then would come bedtimes and Hamilton would return. She had lingered long enough over these revelations. Numbly, she finished collecting up all the pages, refolded them, stacked them neatly, though, she knew, not perfectly, tied them, pinned the tie, slid the card with Laurens' initials back into place, and dropped the bundle into the trunk. Her fingers rested lightly on the packet, then drifted to the other bundle, the one with her own love letters and, she presumed, a few copies of those he had written to her.

With decisive force, she slammed the trunk lid shut, locked the padlock, and went to spend time with her children.

~*~

"Fanny climbed a tree today!" Little Alexander announced. His tone suggested a mixture of admiration and envy, along with no little amount of mischievous tattle-telling. He clearly hoped there would be Consequences.

"Good for Fanny!" his Papa said instead. "Did you follow her?"

"I couldn't reach," Alexander, Jr. said, "and Philip wouldn't help."

"Only because I was already higher than any of you!" Philip protested.

The Tale of the Tree had been of particular interest to them when Eliza joined them to hear about their days' events, as well. She listened to this second recitation with only half her attention. She had also heard a different, third version from their long-suffering nurse, but that wasn't the only reason she could not pay it mind. Dinner was disagreeing with her. Or perhaps it was the way her stomach twisted against her will every time she looked at her husband, smiling across the table like nothing was wrong. 

Well, for him, she realized, nothing _was_ wrong. Nothing whatsoever had changed in his world. In hers, the sun had set and the moon was in eclipse. The moon had _been_ obscured for years and years, and she had had no idea until now. 

She told herself to let it go, that it was past and forgotten and of no consequence to anyone. But then she regarded her Hamilton at the other end of their lively supper table. His exquisite eyes would catch hers and he would wink at something one of the children said, and she smiled back, but she wanted to scream. She wanted to beat his chest and demand satisfaction. Rage and hurt stole her appetite, her conversation, even her joy in the children's boisterous company. It was a relief when the meal ended and she could concern herself with putting the younger ones to bed. 

By the time James and Alexander were tucked in, it was time for Fanny and Angelica to be kissed goodnight. Then John needed feeding again, by which time, Alexander had seen to Philip. She tiptoed into the boys' room to bestow a gentle kiss on her eldest boy's forehead, glad for once that Alexander was already back in his office organizing himself for the next day's work. She could be in bed with a book before he came up to join her. Of all people, Alexander understood and respected the sanctity of reading, and would not disrupt her. 

But to her surprise, he was in the hallway when she closed the boys' door. "I've been thinking of you all day," he said lasciviously, moving to embrace her. 

She suffered the enclosure of his arms, but turned her face from his kiss. 

"What's wrong?" he asked immediately. "Is something wrong?"

"I...I'm sorry, I don't feel well. I've a pain in my...back," she said, choosing what she hoped would seem an innocuous ailment. Though as she said it, she realized it was actually true, it was simply the least of her complaints. "Darling, would you mind sleeping in your dressing room tonight?"

His leer turned to concern as she spoke. Now he stroked her arms lovingly. It made her want to slap him, but she told herself she was behaving like a spoiled, silly child. "Do you need a doctor?"

"No, no, nothing like that," Eliza insisted. "Athough, it's true my stomach has been touchy all day, as well. I think I'm just tired. Perhaps a night's rest is all I need."

He kissed her forehead lightly. "Whatever my lady requires or desires," he said with a shrug. "I'll…. There's an article I wanted to review before tomorrow's meeting. I had planned to read it over breakfast, but, if you're tired, I think I'll just go and read it now."

She nodded. She was not willing to trust her voice. Instead, she turned away from him and retreated to their bedroom. She had to force herself not to turn the key in the door.

"Eliza, you are going to ruin yourself if you keep up this nonsense," she said to herself in aggravation. It was over. It was done. There was nothing to be upset about. So why was she upset?

 _Because he's a degenerate,_ the thought formed before she could stop it. "But he's not, though. He's--passionate," she muttered aloud. _There's nothing wrong with that. Or with him,_ she told herself firmly. _And there could be nothing wrong with Laurens, either._

But she knew that was incorrect, too--or at least, not exactly true. She sank onto the bed and took up the small bible from her nightstand. It did not take more than a moment to flip to passages she had often read but never precisely understood. She read them again now, but even as she did, she could not convince herself that her husband was an abomination! He was good, and loving, and if that love had extended to a fellow soldier, well, what of it? It wasn't as if he went out at night carousing with whores, male or female. Laurens was dead now, anyway, and it was over.

 _So why are you so shocked, Eliza?_ she asked herself. _Why do you hate him so much you want to strangle him?_

Again, the reason came to her, unbidden and undeniable as soon as it sprang to life. _Because, it isn't really over, is it?_ Not while Hamilton kept writing to his inestimable Laurens.

She bent to replace the bible on its shelf. A tear she hadn't even realized she had shed dripped onto her hand. At the same moment, she felt a ferocious cramp in her belly, all the way to the small of her back, like constipation but ten times worse. The force of it made her gasp in pain. A moment later, she fell on her side, doubled over, so that while her legs were right-wise in the bed, her torso and head crossed the pillows. She cried out as another cramp seized her innards. 

"Oh, no," she panted. She had thought the pains of earlier in the day were from exertion; the unsettled feeling in her stomach merely the outward manifestation of her inward turmoil. Now, she suspected something far more insidious. She felt an uncontrollable urge to urinate, and as soon as she focused on _not_ relieving it, she felt the blood begin to flow.

The children were asleep, and Hamilton was downstairs. She forced herself to sit up, and using the furniture for support, she reached the door. She made it to the railing of the landing before she could go no further. Then she screamed for his aid.

~*~

The doctor had asked about her activities of the day, whether she had received any shocking or unpleasant news, whether she had had any food that had disagreed with her--all the standard questions. Eliza lied and did not care whether he believed her or not. No, she had not received any unwelcome news. No, nothing had particularly upset her. No, she had not overtaxed herself. No, nothing whatever had seemed out of the ordinary all day. By the time she had realized the true nature of her complaints, it was too late to do anything to save the baby.

She asked to see the other children as soon as possible, to assure them that she would be all right. Hamilton shortened his days at the President's House when he could and hired a nurse to care for her when he could not be on hand. If he had been hurt that she had known about her condition and had not yet told him, Eliza reasoned, then perhaps that evened the score between them, somewhat.

It was unfair, she knew, but she could not help feeling the revenge was justified. She wasn't sure it was worth the price, though. 

James worried, of course, having but lately grasped the concept of death when Angelica's cat had demonstrated the phenomenon, but his were a child's fears and easily put to rights. Philip asked to delay returning to school but eventually, when he saw that his Mama was in no further danger, he grew more concerned about missing the new term than being absent for any drama at home. Alexander, seeing Philip's buoyancy, followed his elder's example. Little Fanny was perhaps the most concerned. She remembered too well losing her own parents and she took Eliza's scare almost as a personal insult. She volunteered to help take care of her, but there was little that she could do other than keep her company and read to her while she rested. Angelica, bless her, had played at mistress of the house as best she could, but in essence, it was only the housekeeper indulging her. In reality, Mrs. Fairfax ran the house during that time on her own. 

As for Eliza, she resumed her life in small increments--first by continuing to feed John, then little by little, as she regained her strength, by getting back to normal. Once she was able to sit for longer periods, she returned to her correspondence. Seeing Miss Laurens' name in the pile of letters made her shed new tears, for now there was no question of sharing her discovery with the young woman. Hamilton had been entirely right to tell her that Miss Laurens would find no solace in anything he had of her father.

She realized, not for the first time, that she would have been better off not to snoop. 

If losing the baby had had one benefit, however, it was that she no longer hated the sight of her husband. The ire and jealousy she had felt had blown from her like a storm into the sea. Their shared grief, their mutual conviction that all would be well in time, and that there would be other children yet to follow, supplanted any lingering feelings she had about his youthful depravity. He was as completely hers as he had ever been, she was sure. In time, she dismissed the letters, convinced herself that she had imagined the intimacy she had found in them. 

She wrote to Frances, and so did Angelica and Fanny Antill. She took care not to give the girl any false hope, and never mentioned Laurens' letters in their continued exchanges--but then again, she never invited her to visit, either. She felt it would be unfair to Hamilton, somehow, as if meeting the girl would itself be some sort of ambush. She deflected the young woman's requests and encouraged her in other avenues and lines of conversation.

Alexander continued to earn her love by every good and considerate deed. She wondered if the Cabinet privately thanked her for distracting him, but little by little, his attention returned to his work, and soon he was as absorbed as ever. He assured her that he would finish with public life soon, and they would move back to New York within the year, or two at the outside.

And so it was. Life went on.

~*~

**New York, 1797**

The summer before William Stephen was born, Hamilton paid a rather sudden and extended visit on a friend. Shortly after she delivered the new baby, and they had returned to the city, he asked to speak to her one evening, after the children were in bed. (There were eight total, now, including her nephew Philip, but as he and their own Philip, James, and Alexander were all at school, she had only the girls, John, and William to worry about.)

The moment he sat her down in his office, she knew she was not going to like what he had to say. His apprehensive expression told her all. A host of calamities flew through her brain: he had been dismissed by Washington; he had lost all their money in a failed venture; he had duelled and killed the man in the dispute. Anything could be possible. Then in a flood, she remembered all the words in his letters to Laurens, written nearly twenty years ago. His "visit" and its timing suddenly took on new meaning. She almost blurted out the question, "Who is he?" to undercut whatever he was about to confess. Instead, she schooled herself to listen to his bad news and bear it with grace.

It wasn't what she had feared at all. Well, it _was_ , in the strictest sense, but when he had given her a hangdog look and explained about Maria Reynolds, she had been so _relieved_ she had wanted to laugh. His transgression had only been another woman! Thank God.

Only then did the anger set in. _You bastard_ , she thought, and had to suppress another inappropriate snort of laughter. For he was, wasn't he? He had been honest about that, years ago, with her father and then with her. He literally _was_ a bastard. But in this indiscretion, he was proving just the same as nearly every other man in Christendom, legitimate or no. It was disappointing, certainly, but not for the reasons she had expected of herself. It wasn't really jealousy--the affair was over and it had had no impact until now. It was a more pragmatic disapproval that she felt. Another woman. She had truly thought him better than that. 

"You said this was in '91 and '92?" she asked.

"Yes," he said solemnly. "When you told me you were pregnant with John--that's what gave me the strength to end it." He clenched his fists. "I never should have allowed it to begin in the first place."

His self-flagellation did not interest her. "Why are you telling me now?" she asked.

He sighed. "Because it's going to...come out."

Her brow furrowed. "What do you mean, 'Come out?'"

It took him a couple of tries to find the phrase he wanted--unusual for him, she knew, and thus a clear indication of his shame. He revised and edited himself the most when he believed himself most culpable. "Callendar, Monroe, Jefferson--they're conducting a campaign--they're casting aspersions on my handling of the Treasury. Accusing me of malfeasance and speculation."

"And what has that to do with this…Reynolds woman?" Past or not, she would not dignify her rival with her name.

Running a hand through his hair, Alexander explained. It was painful, not least because of the gross insult to her, but almost more because he had been such a fool about it, and was bent now on a course that had calumny and public humiliation writ large across its face. 

"I don't-- _believe_ you can do this," she stammered.

"I must. Do you think I _want_ to drag us through this scandal?"

"I think you are guilty of their accusation if you do! You engage in bad trades in truth, Alexander: You give up your integrity as a husband in a gamble to save your reputation as an administrator! Can you not see that you lose in either case? How are we to face our neighbors or friends after this? You can't do it."

"Betsey. It's already done." At her speechless, astonished expression, he tumbled out the rest. "It will only be a few copies," he assured her. "Just widely circulated enough to...to clear the charges against me."

"You're insane if you think that's where this will stop. Where _they_ will stop. Oh, Hamilton, **WHY** could you not leave it alone? Let them claim anything they like if it's not true--"

He shook his head, overriding her gently, but firmly. "They already had it. If you think we will be ruined by this, you've no idea how they could have twisted the tale if I remained silent--"

 **"I don't care!"** she fired back, rising in her fury. "You damn fool. How could you--and without even _talking_ to me about it?"

"I waited until I knew you and the baby would be well," he said miserably.

"Oh, go to Hell," she told him. "That's not what I meant and you know it." She made for the door, but he reached for her arm.

"I'm so sorry," he said, voice breaking on a barely controlled sob.

"I should hope so," she retorted. She wrenched her arm away and he did not try to restrain her.

Upstairs, she did not hesitate this time to lock her bedroom door. Then she locked the adjoining entry to his dressing room, and paused with her hand on the key. On impulse, she turned it the other way and cracked open the door. The room was dark and empty, but his trunk waited at the base of the bed, just as it had in their Philadelphia house.

She stepped inside, bringing a candle from the bedroom with her. The flame split the gloom, illuminating his possessions. She leaned over the trunk. The padlock was in place, but strangely it was open, hooked casually through the hasp. She remembered, suddenly, the curious bundle that had been among his letters and papers when she had looked before. "J R," she said, with a burst of insight. "James Reynolds. You bastard, you were locking _that_ away, along with the rest."

Setting her jaw, Eliza freed the hasp, lifted the catch and unbuckled the straps of the lid. It hinged open. She pawed through the papers in a rush, searching out her letters. He no longer had any right to keepsake them. She would take no risk that someday in the future, he might decide the world needed to read _them_ , as well.

As she plundered the trunk, another bundle tumbled to one side. It was tied by a blue queue ribbon, with a cravat pin holding the knot in place. Eliza's breathing quickened. She grabbed it as well.

"Right, then," she said aloud, and taking both packets with her, she closed the trunk. 

She felt like she was in a dream, but her actions seemed to come to her with perfect clarity. She went back to the bedroom, retrieved her own bundle of letters from her dressing table drawer, then knelt at the cold hearth with all three packets. With some difficulty, she pushed the screen to the side. Then she untied the garter that held her treasured letters together. As she had done years before, she flipped the stack to begin from the beginning. She unfolded his first letter to her to reread it. Then, using her candle, she lit a corner and tossed the burning page into the fireplace.

She repeated the process for the next letter, and the next. As if in a trance, she fed the flame with page after page, first reading them to affix them in her mind, then consigning them to the fire. She reached into his bundle to retrace what she had written back to him, all those breathless answers to his outrageous flirtations. One by one, she added them to the pile of ashes.

She had completely forgotten, in her fury and madness, to close the adjoining door. Some time later, when she was about halfway through the pile of letters he had written, and nearly completely finished with her (much smaller) pile, she detected movement in the smaller room. Hamilton had come upstairs. 

Eliza reluctantly but resolutely got to her feet, planning to slam the door on him. But he turned and stepped quickly through the threshold. She had caught him as he had begun to undress--his coat and banyan were discarded, and his waistcoat unbuttoned, but he had not yet removed his trousers. The slightly disheveled appearance made him look boyish and small. 

"Eliza?" his voice sounded thready and breathless. "I don't mean to intrude. I understand why you've locked the door, only.... I beg your pardon, I didn't expect this door to be open, when the other was..." his words died when she fixed him a murderous stare. He swallowed and tried again. "I was just getting some things for the night. I'll have the bed moved tomorrow--" His eyes flicked to the hearth, where a few coals still burned. "Are you cold? I'll build the fire for you before I--" She moved to block him, and he instinctively looked around her at the fireplace. Then he glanced down at the papers on the floor. Her letters. The packet with the blue queue ribbon and cravat pin. "Oh, God--Eliza--" and he lunged for them. 

She was closer, though, and quicker. She, too, dove for the bundle. There was a brief tumble during which they both scrabbled for the prize. She grabbed it first, but something had gone askew in the struggle, and suddenly the letters all flew apart. Both of them now scrambled around on their knees to pick up as many of the folded pages as they could. 

"Stop it!" Eliza said, pushing at him. She took one of the letters from her hand and and tossed it on the embers in the hearth. Before he could move toward it, it caught and began to go up. "I swear, I'll burn the rest," she said, holding them toward the fire threateningly.

" **NO!** " Alexander wailed. "Please, Betsey! Not--not those. Anything else. Divorce me, take the children, it's more than I deserve. _Kill_ me--tiptoe into my dressing room in the small hours tonight and slit my throat--only please, give them back."

For a moment, she considered throwing them into the fire anyway, and still sneaking into his room that night and slitting his throat with his own razor. The idea thrilled, then immediately sickened her. She could imagine being angry enough to murder him, but what came after scared her far worse than the thought of momentary satisfaction. Life without her Hamilton? The thought of those brilliant eyes staring at nothing, only to be closed forever? Leaving her alone with no one to talk to, with six of her own children and two more they had made part of their family? No, it was not to be borne.

But neither was his obsession with Laurens. He clung to the letters in his hands like they were a lifeline, frozen, watching her in fear of her next decision. Were these remembrances more important to him than she? In the face of his abjection, she felt her own tears begin. She did not want to cry, particularly not in front of Alexander, but she could not stop herself. "Has it _all_ been a lie, then?" she asked before a sob racked her so hard that she would not have been able to form intelligible words. 

"God, no," Alexander said, stricken, as he always was, by the sight of her--or any woman--in a puddle of her own misery. He edged toward her gently, as one would a spooked horse or a wild animal. She was now too helpless to resist as he inched closer to her hand, and very carefully took the letters back as if they were a loaded gun. His shoulder was so near, it was so tempting to lean against it...but the moment she considered indulging herself, her anger flared again and she pushed him away.

It was as good as if she'd slapped him. He ducked his head and backed away quickly, but still, she noticed, cradling the now-crumpled folds of paper.

"Was he so important to you? More than I?" she choked out.

"Oh, Betsey…." he sat, leaning against the side of their bed, head in his hands, letters in his lap. "It's not that. It's…. They're all I have of him."

Eliza had no idea what to make of that. "Did you love him so much?" she heard herself saying, but her tears, at least, were subsiding. Curiosity was creeping in place of rage.

He looked up at her sadly. "You've...read them, then?"

"Yes," she said, overstating it a bit but it served him right.

"All...all of them?"

She could have lied--lied to condemn him further, or lied to pretend ignorance. But she'd had enough of lies, pretending, and ignorance. "I read enough, Alex. I know he was your…" she searched for an appopriate word, "your lover."

He took a ragged breath, but rather than launch an explanation, he simply said, "Ah. Well, if you wish to destroy me, you have every means you need at your disposal."

"I have no wish to destroy you, Alexander. What I wish is to understand. Have you so little regard for me?"

"I have every regard! You are the only woman I have ever loved." 

She snorted. 

"No, I mean it. That woman--I can't explain my lapse, or my weakness, truly, I wish I could--I should never have allowed it to go on. But I can tell you in absolute honesty that I never felt for her the merest _fraction_ of my love for you. I can't compare what I feel for you to how I feel about _anyone_ , except perhaps our children...and him. But my heart was not divided, ever. I don't even know if I can explain. It was...it was like the bond you have with your Angelica, only coupled also with a...physical comfort that was freely given and freely accepted between us. You must understand that among comrades, the things we lived through together--I would not have had the stomach or the heart to go through them if I had had to see you suffer the same. But with each other, we _had_ each other to...to keep each other going. Perhaps it was only because of the war. I don't know. If he had lived…." He shrugged, and sniffed, and wiped his nose on his sleeve, only afterward fishing for a handkerchief. "I don't know what would have happened. Probably nothing." He clutched the letters to his chest and tears dripped down his cheek. "But I can't lose these. They're all that's left."

Eliza closed her eyes and took several calming breaths. "Have there been others?" she asked.

"Other...men? No, certainly not. Or women, either," he added hastily.

"But why must you keep writing to him?" she asked plaintively. She had not meant it to sound like a whine, but it came out as one. "It's as if you continue to place him between us."

"Between?" he repeated, frowning. "No, not at all. Oh, Betsey, is that-- _have_ you read them, in truth? I was not resurrecting a spectre to haunt us or cast a shadow on our lives. Here, let me--will you let me read one?"

She considered granting his request, but she was tired and more importantly, still cross that he had behaved so atrociously. "Not tonight," she told him. "Not any other night, either," she added impulsively. "You've your precious Laurens' letters back. Let them keep you company."

It was so bitter a condemnation, and its effect on him so trenchant, that she almost regretted her utterance within seconds. The spark of intelligence which always lit in his eyes when he began a discourse faded in an instant, and was replaced by a hooded, self-hating sort of despair. But there was more than that. She recognized his sons in his face, the way they grew despondent when a toy broke or they hurt themselves, and they had momentarily been convinced the world was ending. In a moment that seemed to last forever, she suddenly saw Alexander when he was about James's age, nine years old, learning that his parents had never been married, that he and his brother were illegitimate in the eyes of the world. She saw him cry as other children taunted him and called him "whoreson" and worse. She saw his face as he realized his father had abandoned them and was never going to come back. She saw him at twelve, almost the same age as the child who bore his name, left without a mother or a friend in the world. She saw their Philip, 15, as if he had been fending for himself for two years already, knowing that the man who had taken him in had shortly committed suicide, and that he could depend on no one else. She saw a man who knew in his heart that, sooner or later, everyone connected to him would quit him.

She would not withdraw her love from him and she could not stand to see his self-blame. But she was not ready to forgive him, either.

Just then, he grimaced, one corner of his mouth twisting, and nodded slowly, and like that, her visions faded. The moment of suspension passed. Eyes downcast, he said, "I'll...go." He climbed to his feet and retreated. At the door to his dressing room, he turned. "My dearest Betsey, never in my life did I wish to hurt you. And now I have wounded you to the quick, twice in one night. I would not blame you, my love, if you never forgive me." Then he closed the door behind him. 

Eliza at last gave in to the sorrow. She did not bother to lock the door; he would not intrude further, she knew. She slid onto her side, succumbing to the grief and pain, and cried until she could cry no more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to be historically accurate but forgive any wobbles or places where I had to take artistic license. We do know that Eliza had multiple miscarriages, and there's reason to conclude that Hamilton waited to publish the Reynolds Pamphlet until she had safely delivered William Stephen, so I figured that love of his family could well have put him off Maria.
> 
> We also know that they fostered her nephew after John Bradstreet Schuyler died. I'm sure I'm forgetting other details or leaving out things I do not even know!
> 
>  
> 
> One thing I forgot to note when I first published this chapter: the location of Hamilton's letters and the Reynolds packet are taken from [this letter](http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-18-02-0312) to Robert Troup, in which he was preparing for a duel (that he obviously survived). In a final postscript, Hamilton says: "In my leather Trunk where the bundles abovementioned are is also a bundle inscribed thus—J R _To be forwarded to Oliver Wolcott Junr. Esq._ I entreat that this may be early done by a careful hand.  
>  This trunk contains all my interesting papers."
> 
> So, there you go. He wrote this letter in 1795, but I figure, Ham being Ham, he probably already had it sealed and ready to go pretty much the day after things with Reynolds ended….


	3. Reconciliations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliza rights a wrong; John Church Hamilton wrongs a right; Hamilton and Eliza (sort of) stop fighting.
> 
> This chapter is super-long! Sorry. There was apparently a LOT to cover. (And to be fair, I had set the bar high, so I hope this meets expectations.) Also, JCH is kind of a dick; sorry/not sorry because, well, you'll see. In his defense, he has his reasons and he was not actually wrong about the ramifications--if, as fandom supposes, he actually did find evidence of a romantic relationship between his father and John Laurens.
> 
> Possible triggers for period-typical homophobia (and glancing period-typical racism). Artistic license FREELY applied to the historical facts....

Eliza did forgive him, of course. Really, it was astonishing how quickly she ceased to care about The Reynolds Woman, for her own part. It was difficult, to be sure, since the dreadful inconvenience she and her reprehensible husband had caused impacted not only Eliza, but her _children_ \--and although that much was directly Hamilton's fault, she could not deny that it pained him equally as much to witness their distress. She felt that punishment enough for his rash action, but that wasn't the reason she remained angry for months. Rather, it was Hamilton's devotion to Laurens that took longer to resolve. She prayed for guidance, for strength, and for understanding, knowing her duty as a wife but not sure she could trust herself to receive him back with a whole heart. Eventually, her curiosity won over her wounded pride. In the end, she was glad for the opportunity it presented to know her husband as fully as one person could understand another. 

So with patience and much conversation--and no small amount of love--they weathered that storm, and the two of them came out the stronger for it. She was glad for that, too, because if they had not, she could not have said with certainty that they would have remained strong after Philip's death, Angelica's tragic madness--so many heartaches. A life was made of such difficult times. 

Now, she faced daily struggle without him, but every day, she had reminders of him in her children and her work. 

~*~

 **To Mrs. Francis Henderson from Mrs. Alexander Hamilton** [April 3, 1805]

Dear Fanny,

I was so pleased to receive your favor of the 20th Ult. and to hear that your little boy is thriving. All of mine are as well as can be, saving poor Angelica, of course. Little Phil daily grows more inquisitive and Fanny and I expect any moment he will reach that "Why?" stage you told me your Francis enjoys so much. They all do go through it, I assure you! But you will endure.

I am managing tolerably. It has not been a particularly good year, full of changes, but my sister has been a constant comfort to me. As my mourning period draws to a close I have begun to think of how Hamilton would want me to continue. I've also had a recent meeting with a Mrs. Isabella Graham, in whom I found much to admire, and Mrs. Sara Hoffman and several others, with whom I have much in common. We intend a Venture which, God provide, will thrive based on its charitable worthiness, but will likely require no small amount of ingenuity and determination to enact. The thought of a Project is as much a balm as my children and family have been, over these long months. I've a number of other ideas and hopes, particularly regarding my late husband's legacy, but this, in its way, I believe will prove one of the Testaments that will do the most good to the most people--and I can think of no better honor to his memory.

But I'm thrilled that you will be in New York soon! I have been discussing a visit to the Capitol with my sister, but I shall delay her if you are going to be in town. Please say that you will overlook my long years of deferment and consent to come and see me. It is a meeting long overdue. I only wish it could have been sooner.

Yours in friendship,

E. H.

~*~

Eliza listened indulgently while Fanny Henderson and Fanny Antil conversed animatedly. She had asked her Fanny to take William, Ellie, and Little Phil to the park later, but she would never have denied the two young ladies the chance to meet, after so many years of writing to one another. After thirty minutes, she cleared her throat.

"Oh--yes," Fanny said, and turned to their guest. "Mother wants you to herself," she said with a mischievous grin. "But it was so lovely finally to meet you." The two stood, embraced, and curtsied to one another. Then Fanny kissed Eliza's cheek and closed the door discreetly behind her.

"I can't thank you enough for allowing me to visit you," Fanny said as she resumed her seat. "I probably don't have to tell you how long I've wished to meet you."

"No, and I'm sorry to have delayed you. I wish you could have met Angelica...and Hamilton."

"Yes," Fanny said sadly. Eliza remembered with a pang having to answer Fanny's letter of condolence about Philip with the news that Angelica, too, had been lost in a way. Fanny's last letter to her was never answered.

"But a visit is not all I owe you," Eliza continued. "Thirteen years ago, you asked for copies of your father's letters. I haven't forgotten. You see, I have recently begun my own reconstruction project."

"Oh? Is that the Venture to which your letter referred?"

"No; that is a different matter altogether, though no less a wonderful one." Eliza explained briefly about her idea of talking to the soldiers who had served with or under her husband during the war. "In a way, I got the idea from you. I know that my children will want to know the truth about their father--what sort of man he was, and what sorts of things he accomplished in his life.

"I always told you that it was Hamilton, not I, who refused your requests. I...was not entirely honest. I, too, made a decision some years ago that I ought not to share the letters with you." 

Fanny looked crestfallen. "May I ask why?"

"There were several reasons. First, as you no doubt agree, it's important for a wife to honor the wishes of her husband when she can. Second--well, second, I must tell you, I had resolved in fact _not_ to honor his wishes, to go behind his back and copy what I could find. But when I did locate them, I decided--for your own good--not to go through with my plan. Third, later, I decided that while Hamilton lived, he had a right to his privacy, even from you, and that I would not force the issue."

Eliza reached into the drawer beside her, where she had earlier set the bundle of letters. She had already removed the ones Hamilton had written after Laurens' death, but the others (saving the ones she had unfortunately destroyed) were still there. "I think, now that they are both gone, you had better read them for yourself."

She stood, crossed from her chair to the settee where Fanny sat, and extended the stack, still fastened with the now-faded queue ribbon and pin, toward her. Her hand trembling, Frances accepted them. Then Eliza said, "I'll leave you alone, but I shall be nearby. Please call for me when you have finished. We'll have much to talk about."

~*~

Although it was a sunny day in early summer, the shadows were lengthening by the time Fanny finished reading. She found Eliza in the next room, her kitchen, preparing a simple supper. Eliza wiped her hands on her apron and put the pan in the oven, saying, "Your timing could not be better. We've an hour before this will be ready."

She was smiling broadly, but she was also searching Fanny's face for traces of horror, disgust, disapproval, or any other sign that the young woman regretted her new knowledge. "Are you all right?" she asked at last, taking her guest's arm and leading her back to the parlor. 

"I--yes, I think so." They sat side by side on the sofa, Fanny's pale lawn skirts pressed against Eliza's black mourning dress. "You may not believe this but certain things about my father--make sense, now. In a way."

Eliza's eyebrows lifted but otherwise she concealed her surprise. "They do? I was afraid you might be angry to learn of it."

"Well, it _is_ disquieting," Fanny said. "But I take my comfort in the fact that they really loved each other. Didn't they?"

"Yes, they did. You're not….offended?"

Fanny smiled, head shaking. "Aunt Polly and I toured the southern French territories, including Nouvelle Orléans, several years ago, before they were traded to America. My sensibilities are not as delicate as you might think."

Eliza's eyes narrowed. "Well, I hope there's a difference between our loved ones and the sorts one might encounter _there_ ," she said primly. "Nonetheless, I'm quite pleased to hear you are not revolted. For I must tell you, now, my other reasons for having waited all this time. I have to admit that I was punishing your father, out of a misplaced sort of jealousy, I think. I didn't understand that for a long while, until I had prayed and prayed about it. But that was a minor reason, not a good one. My real decision, which I came to in time, was simple: I wanted you to be able to learn the _whole_ truth of your father, not simply his heroism or his noble goals. I did not want to be the one who provided you with a redacted version of the story--though believe me, I did consider whether it would have been better to do that than nothing. In the end, I decided I could not be the one to lie to you, my dear. But even then, I was not certain you would have had the...the experience and wisdom to absorb this sort of shock."

Fanny nodded. "Yes, I would not have taken it well, at sixteen," she agreed.

"My dear, I took it far from well when I was forty!" Eliza assured her. "I was the longest time forgiving Hamilton--forgiving both of them, in a way." 

"Yes, but General Hamilton was your husband. Colonel Laurens was my father." She sighed. "Poor Father," she said softly.

Eliza regarded Fanny with curiosity. "You said, things make sense. May I ask, what things?"

Fanny pursed her lips. As she spoke, she reached into her reticule and withdrew a handkerchief. "My grandfather was--not always an easy man to love. I don't wish you to think any ill of him," she added quickly. "He was a brilliant statesman and the kindest, best of guardians anyone could ever wish for. I wanted for nothing. And I know he loved us--all his children. But, he was far from indulgent. He was accustomed to having things his way. And he knew how to appeal to one's conscience in ways that were not always reassuring. What I mean is, sometimes he did not scruple to...to let it be known that there would be consequences to not following his instructions."

Eliza nodded. "Yes, Alexander had a similar observation about your grandfather with respect to your father's desire to please him."

"Exactly," Fanny agreed. "I've read all the correspondence I have between them. My father and grandfather, that is. And I do think that perhaps my father...tried his best to overcome his nature. But I don't know whether my grandfather had his own suspicions, or merely held my father to so high a standard that no son could ever have hoped to live up to it. 'Tis certain he blamed my father for my uncle's death. I think he believed my father…deficient, if not deviant."

"For what it's worth, Hamilton was not alone in thinking your father the very pillar of decency and valor. He believed Col. Laurens had every intention of caring for you as a father ought."

"Oh, I don't doubt that," Fanny said with a sad smile. "And he no doubt would have remained dutiful to my mother, had she lived. But I think," she wiped her eyes with an edge of the lace in her hand, "I think he found many aspects of his life difficult burdens to bear. Perhaps he chose the manner of his death, so as to be relieved of his...affliction." She sniffed. 

Eliza touched her hand. "I would not say it if you had not, but Hamilton thought as much, too."

"In any case, I think that's why my grandfather was not very keen to have me contact General Hamilton. I think he feared what might have been confirmed." She nudged the packet of letters. "And so it has been."

"Yes. Oh, but here," Eliza said, reaching for the ribbon. "The queue ribbon was your father's. They had exchanged them, as a sort of...good luck charm. And the cravat pin was a present your father gave Hamilton just before Yorktown. I wanted you to have them."

Fanny shook her head. "No, that's all right. If it was a gift from my father then he would have wanted them to stay with the rightful owners. But, for the letters themselves….what are you going to do with them?" she asked.

Eliza shrugged. "I have a decided interest in making sure that the world knows the best version of Hamilton, like you do with your father. I'm going to keep them secret, for now. Perhaps someday, I'll know what to do." 

Fanny suddenly threw her arms around Eliza. "Thank you, for letting me see them."

"You're very welcome, Fanny," Eliza said, kissing her cheek. She pulled back, but took Fanny's hands in hers. "Thank you for letting me right my wrong. Now, tell me about your idea of getting back pay for our soldiers and their widows…."

~*~

**1824**

John Church Hamilton had had many conversations with his mother about collecting his father's papers and ensuring that they were appropriately preserved. He was currently looking in his mother's home, in the attic, for a portfolio she had lately remembered storing in a trunk there. He rather wished she had thought of it on a more temperate day--it was late August, just past his birthday, in fact, and the heat of the room with its peaked roof and awkward crawlspaces was stifling. But, the old girl was nearly 70 now, and all her children knew better than to ignore her merest request. She had remembered the existence of his father's early drafts of his version of the Constitution, and so they must be located as soon as possible.

He straightened up, feeling an old twinge in his back from his war days. Mopping his brow and neck with his handkerchief, he surveyed the corners of the attic where he had not yet searched. She could remember only that it was in an old trunk, and on further cross-examination, she allowed that it was leather and had contained also Father's old war uniform. Color: black; shape: rectangular. 

He had found the trunk, but it did not have the desired packet of his father's scribblings. "She's going dotty," he muttered to himself. "There's nothing up here." Resolved to descend the steps and disappoint her, he spun in place one more time, just to make sure there was nothing else that _might_ have housed the documents.

On a shelf in the very back of the attic there was another trunk. This one was large, curved, with leather straps. Reasoning that in his mother's dotage, one trunk might look in the mind's eye very like another, he made his way to the shelf and pulled down the piece of luggage. He unbuckled the straps and looked inside.

It must have been his mother's treasure box. There were all sorts of mementos from their lives--Philip's medal from school, when he had taken the Latin prize; one of Angelica's old dolls, the stitching worn and the gown it wore fading with dry rot; the paper crown William had used in the Church Nativity; small envelopes with teeth, hair, and other discarded reminders of their growing up. There were a few pages in his father's hand, but they appeared, mostly, to be letters. One of the bundles was stacked so that neither side had an address facing outward, but it had also been neatly tied with a blue queue ribbon. A handsome cravat pin was stuck into the knot. _Father's love letters?_ he wondered. It felt strange and voyeuristic to read words he had written to Mother, probably before any of them had been born. And yet...and yet….

John was always hungry for any information that would shed light on his father as the man was, not as people varnished him to have been. It was often difficult to reconcile Hamilton the statesman from Hamilton the family man. In the space of only a few years, his detractors had so thoroughly blurred the record that already he was distorting in the national memory. John was sure he could use his father's own words to produce a portrait that would contravene the one his opponents wished to paint--without necessarily going too far in elevating him. Sometimes, he thought he might be able to do it better now than if his father had still been alive.

He had been twelve that day, old enough to remember with astonishing clarity how the family had all gathered round, how Father had tried to put a brave face on, but one could see he was in terrible pain. How Mother and Aunt Angelica had cried. How Mother had hurriedly negotiated with the minister to grant Father's last request for communion. Even at twelve, he had concluded that a man in that dire need of God's forgiveness had carried some guilt that weighed heavily upon him--and that despite his mother's steadfast defense of the man, his father had had no shortage of shames to leave behind. Later, he had begun to assemble the record for himself. He had been raised to admire and revere his father and his father's memory, but that did not mean that he remembered a saint. They had Ellie, William, and Little Phil for that.

Perhaps it helped that he had been attracted to the law, as James and Alexander had been, but soon found the bar not as interesting as the process of reconstructing the facts of a case. In law, proof was what mattered in court, not necessarily truth. In order to get to the truth, one had to sift and sort through all the factual evidence. Too many attorneys valued only the glamor of twisting those facts and putting on a show to please jury or judge. Truth was not a show. Truth rarely paraded through the streets wearing a sash of office and waving at the crowds; it lurked in the doorways and alleys, never all in one place. It had to be put together like a jigsaw puzzle. So did his father's life--any life, really. John liked puzzles. The truth in a biography was to be found, not just in anecdotes and stories like his mother had collected, but in the documentation left behind.

The thought of these rare documents, and what they might tell, made his mind up for him. He picked up the trunk and brought it down out of the oppressive heat. He placed it in the spare bedroom, where he could catalogue its contents over time, but before he left it to report his unsuccessful trip into his mother's attic, he lifted out the little bundle. Tucking it into his breast pocket, he clumped back downstairs.

"I couldn't find what you were looking for, Mother," he said as he joined her in the parlor. "But I did find some other of his papers. From the Revolution, it looks like. Do you mind if I take some of the letters and things home to read?"

"Which letters are those, love?" Mother asked absently. She was already pouring coffee.

"I'm not sure. To be honest, it was so sweltering up there I haven't really looked them over yet. I think they might be some of yours? Or more accurately, letters he wrote to you."

Mother blinked. "Yes, he did manage to keep some," she said cryptically. "Well, all right, but I don't want to read about them in whatever this memoir is that you're planning."

"Who said I'm planning a memoir?" he asked in mock offense. "James is the diarist."

"Hmpf," Mother grunted. "I've told you, the goal is to get your father the recognition he deserves, not to sensationalize our lives."

"I'm sure your lives were sensational enough without any embellishment on our part, Mother," John said. "Mine or James's." He kissed her forehead. "I promise I shall do my best not to be scandalized."

That night, he lit the lamps in his study and set the bundle on his blotter. First, he unfastened it, then began to open and organize the folded pages. He saw right away that they were not to his mother, at all. "John Laurens!" he exclaimed. "Well, I'll be. They _are_ from the War."

Knowing now that there was no way his mother could object, as her own intimate phrases would not be under scrutiny, he continued. After about August, 1782, the letters were all from Father to Col. Laurens, and some of them looked like they had never been addressed, much less sent. John wondered if perhaps they had had a row. His father had valued friendships and done his best to maintain them. But that didn't mean Father never fell out with anyone he had been close to. Perhaps he and Laurens had quarrelled, and Father never got the nerve or got over his pride enough to send his letters of apology.

No, he remembered. That wasn't right. Laurens had _died_ before the end of the Revolution. And yet Father kept writing to him? This was curious.

Forcing himself to a logical and organized methodology, he held off reading at random; instead concentrating on unfolding the letters and laying them on the blotter. Father had obviously kept them in order, for all John had had to do was start at the top. The oldest letter would be first in line to be read. It was a little unusual, in fact--for one of Mother's chief complaints over the last twenty years was that Father's notes and papers had always been at sixes and sevens. 

But, John wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. They were in order already; that made it easy to read them. He poured himself a brandy and dove in.

"Good God," he said aloud some hours later. One brandy had led to another as he had read letter after letter. At first, they had been light-hearted, filled with fascinating tidbits about their lives as soldiers and particularly President Washington's military family. There were unfortunate gaps, but that was inevitable in a war fought and won forty years ago. He had laughed himself silly at a comment his father made about one of the other aides, and sympathized with Laurens over the difficulties he faced in trying to raise a battalion of slaves, to be manumitted in exchange for their service. He'd recognized his father's compassion in letters to Laurens during his imprisonment, and felt connected to them both for their cameraderie and care for each other. But then, he came to passages that were more affectionate than he thought was probably seemly, even back then. He'd gone back over one letter in particular, three times pulling it out of the stack and re-reading it in comparison to other, later entries. In it, his father had discovered Laurens' wife and daughter (and had Laurens really not told him about his family?), and then went on to produce a crude, rude, lewd few paragraphs which made John blush each time he read it. 

Then there were Father's letters to Laurens _post-mortem_. And a couple of letters from Laurens to Father while the former had been in France, still restrained compared to his father's prose, but definitely more forthcoming than any others that survived. They had left little doubt as to the nature of their--friendship. 

He looked down and saw he had nearly finished the decanter, so he poured the last swallows into his glass. "Good _God_ ," he said again. It seemed fantastical--something out of melodrama or a pennydreadful. His father and John Laurens? Impossible. Yet the evidence was strewn about his desk, and it was nearly incontrovertible.

He was no stranger to the concept. He'd served in wartime himself, and there were always a few shirt-lifters in the camp. Personally, he found the very idea repugnant, but so long as they did no harm and kept their unnatural desires to themselves, he had learned to ignore the aberrent behavior. The very idea that his own father had engaged in...in...he wouldn't even name it!--Well, it was simply not to be borne. And to keep writing after the man had died? To leave stark proof of his depravity? Especially considering how many enemies his father had made in his life of service, it was madness. Father had been totally mad.

He pulled out the infamous letter again, looking at it with the eye of an historian. _All right_ , he concluded, most _of it is fine_. Everyone knew that Father's generation had been more florid in letters, even to other men, so while it was ribald, it was hardly damning. It was only the last sentence of the sixth paragraph and the following paragraph in its entirety. That could be easily remedied. He took a pencil from his drawer and lightly made a note on the top of the page. 

There were other letters that simply could not be made public; and in at least one case, an entire page of one of Laurens' would have to be cut altogether. But, he reasoned, it might be possible to alter the record minimally without leaving obvious tracks.

He sorted the letters into piles so that in the morning, he could take on the task of separating the unacceptable passages. One thought drove him as he took his last swig of brandy: _Mother must not be told_. He was committing a breach of historical accuracy--but one, he was certain, that was entirely justified, necessary, and in its way, laudable. The world must never see _this_ aspect of Alexander Hamilton. And if John had anything to say about it, his mother would never see it, either. 

~*~

In late September, John accompanied his mother to visit his elder sister. Visits to Angelica were stressful under the best of circumstances, but it was infinitely better than Mother trying to care for their sister herself. Of course, that meant ferrying Mother up to Flushing to see Angelica--a process which only partially yielded results, and usually left Mother feeling worse than when she had determined to pay the call. It broke John's heart every time to watch Mother listen serenely as Angelica, now 40 but still behaving like a teenager, played piano, and asked for Father and Philip as if they had not been dead for twenty years. Nonetheless, Mother had brought her birthday presents, had doted on her and indulged her phantasy, as Dr. Macdonald had instructed. They returned late in the afternoon, feeling wrung out.

"You'll stay to supper," Mother asked, though it wasn't a question.

He longed to get back to his own children, and hug them and thank God that they were thriving, but there was no refusing her. _It's James's turn next,_ he thought with gritted teeth. Anticipating a tense meal during which Mother remained sad and subdued, he said, "Of course, Mother, I'd be delighted."

He lit the fire for her, since he knew it was difficult with her hands these days. She bustled about the kitchen, however, with a determination that was all too familiar. He sat at the table, meanwhile, too lost in his own thoughts to make conversation.

"I've been wondering about those letters you said you found," Mother said all of a sudden. "The trunk you found them in--did you bring it down to the spare bedroom?"

"What? I--yes, I thought I told you I'd brought it down to access it more easily. I apologize if I forgot to mention it. I hope you didn't try to put it away yourself, Mother dear. There's more in there…."

"Yes, I know. John," she said, coming to sit by him at the table, "the letters you took." She put her hand over his. " I'd like you to bring them back, put them away, and you'll put the trunk away, too, please."

"Well, I don't have them with me…" he hedged.

"Of course not. You can bring them back tomorrow." She patted his hand and rose, leaning on him to lever herself up, and went back to her cooking.

"Mother--I meant to tell you earlier, actually--those letters weren't yours. I mean, they weren't between you and Father."

"Yes, I know," she said again with the same assured tone that said nothing could get past her. "I happened to notice the trunk and I looked inside to see what was missing. His correspondence with Laurens." She stirred the pot with the soup and let that sink in for a moment. "If I had realized that's what you found, dear, I would have told you to leave them be."

"Mother, am I to understand that...that you've _read_ those letters?"

She dipped the spoon into the soup and delicately tasted it, reached for the salt.

"Mother?"

"I've read them." She turned around and came to sit again. "I suppose that means you've already read them, too."

"Well...yes."

"So you see why they cannot be used in your collections," Mother said matter-of-factly.

John regarded his mother with incomprehension. "I see a good deal more than that. Mother, you can't honestly tell me that--that that is all you have to say about them?"

Mother shrugged. "What is there to say, John? I had hoped you would never need to know about it. But I suppose, I've always known this day would come. I wish you'd been older when it did."

He stared at her blankly. "I'm 33."

"Yes," she said, as if that proved her point.

"Mother, I'm not altogether unfamiliar with...with men who are not _men_ ," he explained, trying to spare her the gory details. "They are a disgrace to themselves and all who know them."

"John. Your father was most certainly a _man_ , as you delicately put it, and if he was a disgrace, it was not because of his love for John Laurens or any other man. Your father...was physically attracted to both men and women. But he took his marriage vow as a solemn oath." She stopped herself saying more, but John knew what she was thinking.

"Other than the Reynolds woman," he filled in for her. The Reynolds affair and his father's disastrous pamphlet was generally an unacceptable topic--and if it had to be mentioned, "The Reynolds Woman" was the only acceptable way to pay it reference.

"Other than the Reynolds woman, yes," she admitted. "But that was the real aberration. He was never in love with her, like he was with me. Or Laurens. Oh, and the Marquis de Lafayette," she added wickedly.

" _MOTHER!_ " John gasped. "Do you seriously mean to suggest that you _knew_ about this...this… _deficiency_?"

"I've already told you, John, it was not a deficiency and you will please cease speaking of your father with such disrespect."

John closed his eyes in a prayer for patience. "Did. You. Know?" he asked pointedly.

Mother sighed. "Not at first, but since...oh, since you were a baby. That's when I found those same letters you now have in your possession." She got to her feet again and said, "Set the table, dear; supper's ready."

"I still don't understand," he said, once she had served and he had dipped his bread in the broth and made approving noises about the flavor. "If you found those letters, why did you not divorce?"

"John, how can you even ask that? I didn't divorce him, obviously, because I loved your father. And he loved me, and all you children. And if we had divorced, the scandal would have further damaged or possibly even ended his career, and we would not have Will or Ellie or Little Phil. Divorce!" she scoffed. "What a suggestion."

"But--"

"He had a very close personal friendship with a fellow soldier who died tragically in the war, John."

"To whom he kept writing for years, in--in explicit terms!"

"Yes, well." She waved a dismissive hand. "He wasn't going around falling in love with anyone else, though."

John began a retort, then clamped his mouth shut on it. "That hardly excuses him, but I suppose you are to be commended for your fidelity, Mother dear." He spooned a few mouthfuls of soup. "But, as you say, there can be no question of allowing those letters to fall into the public record. That's why I've amended them."

Her spoon clattered into her bowl. "You what?"

"I've made sure that no one can accuse either Father or John Laurens of any irregularity in their relations, and that what remains can be read as one would any normal, healthy, devoted bond between men of the last century."

Mother did not seem mollified. "Just how have you done that, John?" she asked.

"Well," he said, slicing more bread, and choosing his words carefully. "I've made it impossible to read certain passages and...and discarded others. It shouldn't be terribly obvious anywhere, and where it does look suspicious, I can simply say that the remark would have been unprintable. Any publisher will assume it was merely offensive. Soldiers and sailors, after all, tend to have saucy tongues. They'll believe it was just an indelicate profanity or something of the kind."

"And when you say 'discarded,' you mean…?"

"I've destroyed them." John felt a little unfairly used. Mother was looking at him as if he had killed one of Angelica's parakeets, when all he was doing was defending Father's honor--as well as her honor, and really, the whole family. Besides, it had taken a long time and careful effort. "Well, don't you see, even if we were to withhold the letters now, and instruct my children or James's to protect them from the public…. I mean to say, eventually, _someone_ we don't know will lay their hands on them. All the work we're doing to restore Father's reputation and legacy might come crashing down because of the very existence of those letters."

"John, I once destroyed dozens of letters your father and I had written. I regret that so much now."

John flared in anger. "Yes, when he had hurt you! When he told you about his torrid affair."

" _John Church Hamilton!_ " She looked at him in astonishment. He had no time for her indignation.

"I remember, Mother. I was only five but do you think I don't _remember_ how you two quarreled? He slept downstairs for months." He did not add that Philip, Angelica, and Fanny had tried to shield the younger children from the reasons, but they had all known about the Pamphlet. Father had warned them all that things would be bad for a while. John wasn't sure even Father had anticipated _how_ bad. Philip, Alex, and James had had more than one fight at school and quite a few with neighborhood boys over the whole business, and it had even made school a living Hell for Cousin Philip for a while. But it was useless to bring all that up again, and it would only have upset her more.

"Don't talk to me like that; I'm your mother. As it happens, the worst part of our quarrel wasn't about the affair. Not entirely. That is, of course I was furious about the publication, and its effect on all of you, but that was a storm that had to blow itself out, and nothing to be done but weather it all together. No, I was censuring your father because--that's when I confronted him about Laurens."

"All right, I'm sorry I got cross," John said quietly, chastened. "Will you please for the love of God explain?"

"Help me wash up first."

He could tell it was a stall, an opportunity for Mother to think through her story, but he was willing to give her the room if it meant she would untangle the mystery for him. With the soup cooling in the pot on the back porch, and the bowls dried and back in the cupboard, she sliced a little cake and served him.

Then, she told him about finding the letters and how it had, at first, shocked her so that she had miscarried his little brother or sister. How she had decided to set her knowledge aside for the good of her family. How, in the wake of learning about The Reynolds Woman, she had tried to erase not only her own letters and mementos of Father's courtship, but his connection to a man who had been dead for more than a decade. 

"Of course, I never intended to leave him," Mother said. "But I was certainly punishing him. And myself, I suppose. I'm not proud of it; it was decidedly unChristian of me. And I know it was hard on you children. But after a while, I got too curious, and I asked him how he had come to care so deeply and so… unconventionally, for Laurens…."

~*~

**December, 1797**

Eliza went to see him in his office. Where else? When Alexander was upset, he threw himself into his work. She knocked and entered, unsurprised to see him head-down, surrounded by sheaves of paper strewn on every surface, drying or awaiting his further organization. Even the small bed that had formerly occupied his dressing room was covered in the result of his productivity. 

"I said Papa will come hear your piece in half an hour, An--Oh!" he looked up and got to his feet upon realizing the identity of his visitor. "Betsey. Please, please come in. Here--" he came around his desk to sweep the pages off one of the chairs that made a sitting area by the fireplace. "Do sit down."

She stepped into the room and closed the door, but did not take the proferred seat. She could see Alexander's pulse quickening in the way he breathed, the lace at his throat jumping. He clearly could not decide whether to be happy or apprehensive that she had sought him out. Suddenly, she lost track of everything she had planned to ask or say, so instead, she said the first thing that came to her.

"It wasn't twice in one night."

His eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out the reference. Her confidence was not misplaced, though, for clearly their last conversation still reverberated in his mind, too. "You...already knew where I kept those letters, of course," he said, putting the puzzle together, connecting the dots as he always did. "Which means…. How long had you known about them?"

"April, '93," she said.

Realization dawned. "The night you miscarried?" he asked, stricken. She nodded. He dropped onto the bed heavily, hands braced on his knees. "So, that was _my_ fault…." he whispered. "Betsey…."

"What's done is done," she said, deriving some satisfaction from seeing his guilt renewed, even if it was deputed. "My point is, I've known for four years. I had decided to disregard what I'd seen because I had assured myself you were a faithful and loving husband." She could not keep the bitterness out of her voice. This was not going as she'd intended; she was still more angry than she'd believed herself to be.

"Betsey, I swear to you--"

"Let's not--I don't want to cover that ground again, Hamilton," she said firmly. "But it's nearly Christmas and...and we shall have to appear unified, for the sake of the children and the community."

"Of course," he said, reflexively straightening his collar. He only succeeded in smudging it with ink.

"It would help me to know...to understand how-- _why_ your attachment to Laurens formed in the first place. You said there have been no other women but her, and I believe you. And you said there were no other men but him…. Did he seduce you, as well? Was it a failure of your willpower? Did you fear to accuse him because of his father?"

"No, nothing like that…." Hamilton stared at her for a moment, his face showing a conflict between relief that they were talking and fear of what he would have to say to answer her. "I think a whiskey is in order for me. May I pour you some sherry?"

"Whiskey will do," she said with more confidence than she felt.

He knew as well as she that she never drank it, but he wisely gave her a dram. A small one, she noticed. She tipped it back to down it in one, and held out the glass again. His eyes widened, but he poured her another measure. This she sipped more sedately. The heat of the first swallow was spreading through her chest already. It made her feel more distance from the situation. She sat now in the high-backed chair and nodded to him, both to assure him she was none the worse for the draft and to give him leave to explain himself.

~*~

**1824**

"He told me that he had always felt attraction for both women and men," Mother said. "He told me that he preferred women, for innumerable reasons, but not least because it was much less dangerous to indulge one's fancies. But he admitted that he was not immune to men's charms, either. He knew that some would call it immoral, and he knew the potential consequences if the wrong sort of person ever found out. 

"But during the War, he came into contact with a group of men who had been able to arrange themselves in accordance with their youthful...zest, one might call it. Among them were von Steuben, the Marquis...and Laurens.

"Many of them were like your father--able to feel attraction to men as well as women, and very lucky that they could find true happiness with a wife. A few reasoned that it was better to sin in cameraderie than with a doxy or harlot, and most saw their...their infidelities as solely a wartime condition. Once the fighting ended, they would go back to their wives with no further thought for the ways they had had to make do."

"Yes, we had a few of those in the regiment," John muttered.

"Laurens was not one of the lucky ones," Mother went on, as if John had not spoken. "His marriage had been one of duty, not of love. He felt almost no attraction to women. When he realized he could safely confide in your father…." She spread her hands. "Naturally, they shared a bond. And for your father's part, he, too, was grateful to have someone else with whom he could be completely honest.

"And after he told me all this--once I was able to hear and understand it--that meant that he could be honest with me, too. It was the first of many conversations we would have about...topics that are too intimate to discuss with you," she said with a wistful smile. "I believe it made us stronger than ever. He knew that I would not reject him for something over which he had no choice. And I would like to point out that he never again cheated or lied to me, or felt he had to hide his desires. I didn't think it at first, but I'm so grateful now to have known him so completely." 

She leaned forward to cup John's cheek. Tears glistened in her eyes, but she did not let them fall. "He loved you all, so much. He was never happier than when we were all together, at breakfast or hearing your exercises, or tucking you all in at night. He would have wanted to see you grow into men and women who judge others not by _who_ they love, but how _well_."

"That's a wonderful bedtime story, Mother, but we don't live in a world that cares not _who_ one loves." John took her hand and held it. "They very much care. And they very much hold, as I do, that the congress of a man with other men is--is a sin against God."

"Well, I'm not so sure about that," Mother said, her mouth twisting. "What's more, I don't think your brother Will would agree."

"Oh, my God," John moaned, eyes widening. "William?"

"I'm afraid so. It's one of the reasons he moved out to Springfield--so he could have a bit more privacy to live as he wishes to live."

"Did he...tell you that?"

Mother smiled. "He didn't have to."

John's head had begun to ache. He did not think he could take another revelation of this nature. "Be that as it may," he said, trying his best to dismiss all the ephemeral information and return to the crux of the matter, "it is up to us to ensure that Father's reputation is secure. You yourself said that his legacy was of the utmost importance. The only safe course is to….edit the ones I can, and destroy the ones for which there can be no alternate explanation."

"No, I understand what you're saying. You're right--we could not have added everything to the record without some...omissions. Which ones did you destroy, by the way? And in what way did you destroy them? Can they be saved?"

John shook his head. "All the post-mortem ones, I'm afraid. And several of both Father's and Laurens', and where possible, only a page or two. Part of Laurens' final letter to Father, the more condemning exchanges from '79 and '80. I spent the last three weeks deciding what could possibly be kept and what had to go. As for what went…. I... I burned them."

Mother nodded. Her eyelids closed, causing her unshed tears to track down her cheeks, but when she opened her eyes again, they were clear. "Oh, John. That's a great pity. I would have liked to have read them again. The letters he wrote to Laurens in the first years after the War were... they were a window onto what he wanted for us--all of us, the whole nation, not just our family. I would like to believe that someday, the world will be ready to read the true record. To accept men like Laurens or your brother, and to know Hamilton as I did."

John regarded his mother for a long time in silence. He could not credit that she had known for years about his father, and still loved him. That William had inherited Father's sodomite predilections! And had she really just blandly intimated that Father and the Marquis de Lafayette had had a liaison? It was too much to absorb. Yet here she sat, still wearing the mourning ring with Father's hair, still very much in love, still defending her husband with every fiber of her being, from enemies foreign...and domestic. He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. "You are a remarkable woman, Mother," he said.

"Why, yes, I am," she agreed with a coquettish grin.

~*~

**1797**

"...So, that's how it was," Hamilton said, building up the fire again. "There were always close friendships, bonds that went beyond brotherhood, but most people were happy to attribute it to the privation we endured, and the fact that some men could not do without. They chose to see their relations with each other as something outside the realm of adultery, since they derived from each other something slightly different from what a wife would provide--and you wives were not available on campaign all the time, anyway."

"But there are laws against it," Eliza commented.

"There are laws against all sorts of things; people do them anyway. If they didn't I wouldn't have a profession. One simply had to be...careful." He placed another log in the grate and reached for the poker.

"So, you were...substituting the comforts of a wife by...relieving your appetites with each other?"

"Well…. Let us say that every man had his own reasons, whatever they were. The Baron and the Marquis, of course, were a bit more, er, _continental_ in their attitudes. Gilbert believed that my island upbringing may have had something to do with my own predilections. I'm not sure. It's true that I'd heard of that sort of thing in St. Croix, but generally it was men who had been transported for their 'crimes.' They had a quarter but I was always too afraid to venture into it. In any case, I never met anyone who felt attractions like mine until I came to New Jersey, and never really felt any deeper affection for anyone who returned the sentiment before joining the Army. 

"It was still extremely dangerous, but at the same time...things were so different, in camp, on campaign. Freer, in a way. One's fellows were too happy to ascribe any particular closeness to the bond of brotherhood, and any horseplay to youthful exuberance. If one was careful, it could be hidden easily. Even if one wasn't, sometimes. Baron von Steuben was the most flamboyant, flagrant sort, but he was also a damn fine soldier, and we needed him, so everyone turned a blind eye--including the General." There was no mistaking Hamilton's tone there. Eliza took some solace in the idea that Washington, at least, was above any such sport, and only tolerated it in his men as an eccentricity. 

"As for the Marquis, there was never a young fellow as in love with his wife as he, but, like me, he did not seem to limit himself. His love for Adrienne was never diminished by another liaison. And he was the soul of discretion. I don't think even the General had any inkling--and to be sure, no one was in a hurry to tell him."

"You said there were no other men," Eliza said cuttingly.

He took a swig of whiskey, caught in the lie. "Your pardon. When I said there had been no others, I meant, since we were wed, of course."

"Oh. of course," she said sarcastically.

"My dear, it's impossible _not_ to fall in love with the Marquis de Lafayette," he said with an unapologetic (and strangely French) shrug. "But I can honestly say that ours was not a long-lived affair. Particularly not after it became clear that Laurens was also one of our number."

"Was he, too, the type who excused his adultery on account of the war?"

"No, I don't think so," Hamilton said darkly. He suddenly grew much more serious and took a long time with the poker before returning to his seat on the bed. "Poor Laurens, no. It was...different for him. His father was--a tyrant, in his fashion. I think his time on His Excellency's staff was Laurens' only real period of freedom."

"Wasn't he already married?"

"Yes, but he told no one. I didn't learn of it myself until letters from his wife arrived in the camp in '79." He swirled the liquor in his glass. "That's one of many reasons I did not think it prudent to assist your Miss Laurens in her request. I know that John would have been a dutiful father, had he lived--it was not in him to be anything else. But he did not love her mother. I don't believe he was ever truly in love with a woman in his life, poor man."

"The war afforded him the opportunity to fornicate, ignore his obligations to his family, and pretend to a nobility he did not possess," Eliza said without attempting to disguise her contempt. "Yes, what a fine fellow you befriended, Alexander."

"You used to say you could not wait to meet him," he said softly.

"I used to believe he had not stolen my husband's heart!" she answered. Her glass was empty. Either she had had too much, or not enough. "I need another drink," she announced to him.

He rose to refill for them both, letting the accusation hang in the air. When he turned around again, he said, "It was actually the other way around, Betsey. _You_ stole my heart, from the moment I met you. Laurens understood that. You offered me a future and happiness and a _life_ that he and I could never have shared, even if we had wanted it." He handed her the glass but hovered over her, looking her in the eye. "You, your sweetness, your intelligence--you were the answer to prayers I had not even dared to utter, except in jest. You were all I imagined a wife could be and so much more than I deserved. You and the children--how could I not thank God for you every day?"

She watched him, stone-faced, waiting for the rest. She was not about to let him woo her into capitulation now. When he saw that she was not thawing toward him yet, he cast his eyes down and paced to the mantel. Looking into the flames, he continued: "As for Laurens… In the end, we didn't have much. A year or two on the General's staff, a few visits to him in Philadelphia while he was prisoner. Then we arranged his exchange only if he would go to France. He tried to forward my name, as you know, but I wasn't chosen to join him, so…. Yorktown was the last time we saw each other, and he barely made it back for that. You and I were already married--Hell, Philip was on the way!--We knew our time was nearly over.

"John…. John always warred within himself because of his nature. His life was dominated by the desire to please his father, which in my opinion was an impossible task, but nonetheless, one he felt necessary as an obedient and respectful son. No one could fault him for that but...it took its toll. He didn't really want to do any of the things with his life that his father insisted were right…. He wanted to become a doctor or a naturalist; Henry wanted him to read law and enter politics. He wanted to join the war early, as I did; his father kept him stewing on the continent for over a year. He saw himself as a terrible disappointment." He turned to face her again. "Did I ever tell you that he held himself responsible for his brother's death?"

Eliza bobbed her head. "Yes, I remember you saying something about it."

Nodding, he returned to the bed and perched on it again. "On top of that, Henry had been embarrassed by the hasty marriage and--they never saw exactly eye to eye about the Black Battalion. Henry had a host of slights--some real differences, but most imagined--and he held John accountable for every grievance. John took it all to heart. He expressed a suicidal desire more than once, and at least one of my trips to visit him in Philadelphia was in response to a letter that frightened me so much I was sure I would arrive too late.

"I think, if John _could_ have changed his nature, he would have done it, happily. But, knowing that he could not, and that I was settled with you and a son, and his father coming home from captivity, the War all but over…." He ran a hand through his hair. "I hate to suggest that he would have deliberately put himself in harm's way, but I think he feared being left alone at the War's end. He was frequently reckless in battle. The engagement that killed him--it was completely avoidable. He didn't have to fight, he didn't have to lead his men into danger--but he did. I think part of him did not want to survive, did not want to have to go home to his father, bring up his daughter, and live a life in which he would constantly be under the thumb of a man who deprecated him at every turn. I pray God for his deliverance." He drained his glass.

"Did Henry know, then?" Eliza asked, sympathetic despite her stung pride.

Hamilton drew a steadying breath. "I'm...not sure. I always got the sense that he didn't approve of _me_ , for all our brief correspondence was polite. But that was not necessarily because he suspected."

Eliza took a sip of whiskey. It was as if she were tasting it for the first time: the bite of the alcohol wrinkled her nose involuntarily. "How do you fellows drink this?" she commented, but nonetheless tipped the glass to her lips again to empty it, and set it aside. "Are you still attracted to other men?" she asked.

He blinked, as if she had poked him in the eye. "Are _you_?" he asked just as bluntly.

She thought about it. "Fair enough," she conceded with a sigh. "There remains the question of why you continued to write to him."

"I thought you said you didn't wish to hear about that," Hamilton said carefully.

"I know what I said," she snapped. "I've changed my mind."

"Are you sure you wouldn't like to… Are you certain?" he asked.

"I'm certain. Please. Explain."

"I'm not sure I…" he muttered under his breath, but then he gathered himself. "All right. I wasn't writing to Laurens. I was writing about us."

"Us?"

"All of us. You and the children, the Constitutional Convention, the General, Jefferson--all of it. Writing to Laurens was...my way of mourning him, when I wasn't at liberty to do so the way I--the way I would have wanted to. The way a man can only mourn if he loses a wife or a child or--something equally unimaginable." He searched for the words and finally settled on one, though his shrug suggested he was not satisfied with his rhetoric. "I didn't dare tell you, I didn't dare share the grief with anyone else. There was so much to _do_ , and now I had lost a dear friend who I know would have been able to lend his considerable voice to the proceedings. So, once in a while--when I thought of him, when the feeling of _missing_ him was too powerful, I...I would write a letter. I would tell him all that was going on, as I had done back when we were serving the General and had to be separated. 

"It helped in more ways than one. It organized my thoughts. I found that by writing to Laurens--the Laurens of my imagination--I could think through what I wanted to say or do. I would remember him in my prayers and it would...focus my energy. I could expel some of my worse fantasies and resume the other ruminations which my work required. It gave me hope when the business of governing was too infuriating, because he would not have given up."

Eliza felt her throat tighten. She touched her cheeks and they were wet with tears. "You couldn't tell me these things? Talk to me about your doubts?" _Or your fantasies?_ she left unsaid.

"I wanted to spare you my moods, my tempers and cares," he answered. Then, he pushed forward from his seat on the bed, onto his knees at her feet, and took both her hands in his. "It's an error I will correct, if you'll let me."

She looked down at his face, with its own fresh tears, and her heart melted all over again. "On one condition," she said.

"Name it."

"I am your partner, Alexander. In life and in all things. Trust me. Include me. Talk to me--about everything, not just the topics you think are appropriate." She pulled one hand away to place it on his cheek. "And if you _ever_ find yourself contemplating a liaison with another man…. Tell me about it, first, before you do anything you might regret."

He smiled. "Who could compare to the best of wives and best of women?" he asked. The words were flirtatious and flattering, but there was no mistaking the sincerity in his tone. He kissed her tenderly, first her fingertips, back and front, and then, more hesitantly, leaned up to claim her mouth. She yielded to his lips but did not deepen the kiss. He pulled back. "You have been so patient with me, my love."

"I haven't murdered you yet," she agreed.

"Could you be a little more indulgent still? Months ago, I told you it might help if I read you one of the letters. Do you--are you willing to listen to one now?"

Eliza considered. She felt in that moment as if she had laid the ghost to rest, and nothing could come between them again. If she had still had any doubts, he had removed them with his penitent kiss. She nodded. "If you think it is important, then yes. One. And Hamilton, I may yet wish to read them at my leisure."

"You may, any time you like. I only hid them out of fear you would stumble across them. Which you cleverly did, anyway. I've nothing more of consequence to hide." He picked up her glass and held it out in a silent question.

"Just sherry, please," she told him with a headshake.

He rose and poured her a fresh drink. Then he crossed to a cabinet behind his desk. From inside it, he pulled out a familiar-looking bundle. He freed the pile, put on his glasses, looked through the letters, and selected one. 

Instead of sinking onto the bed, he sat down on the floor in front of her skirts, near the fire, and rested his head on her knee. He unfolded the letter and began to read.

~*~

 **To JL from AH** [July 3, 1786]

Dearest Laurens,

When last I wrote, the house was in chaos from the new arrival. Chaos now has a name, and you will laugh when I tell you it is Alexander. I have a namesake! I pray his name is not the only way in which he grows to resemble his father, but that he wisely chooses only to emulate those of my qualities that could be said to merit praise, and for all other areas, he looks to his unimpeachable mother for an inheritance. That unadulterated joy of fatherhood has not lost its lustre, no matter how many times the cradle has been filled. The others are all well--little Angelica has transformed from a tentative wordsmith to a chatterbox; Philip has finally ceased to answer everything with "No" but has traded that syllable for "Why?"--which may not be an improvement--and begun to learn piano from his Mama; and that beloved and better part of myself continues to astonish me daily by remaining as true and good a mate as one could hope to have by one's side--saving of course, yourself.

This happy scene of domesticity was lately marred by sad news: we learned recently that our old friend, General Greene, died on the 19th Ult. His Excellency was greatly affected by the news, as were we all, and who do you suppose is to pen his Eulogium? It is to be delivered on the tenth anniversary of Independence Day at St. Paul's here in town, before, it must be said, an august assemblage of persons and societies, and presided over by no less a dignitary than the President and Mrs. W., as well as the Adamses and most of the administration. Ten years since the Declaration--it is almost too incredible to consider. If ten years ago, one had told any of us we would be running a new sovereign country, that young men with little more than the clothes on their backs would shape and build this nation...who do you suppose would have believed it? No one. How much more we could have done were you in the present fight, I know not, but I must think it a great deal of progress compared to our current straits. If I told you all that has been bandied in the papers, you would scarce credit it. Still, the coming anniversary and the Address may afford an opportunity to remind the assembled Elite of our path through the wilderness. Nonetheless, I wish you were here to lend your voice to the proceedings. You could speak to Virginians, my dr., or Carolinians--you understood the language. To me it is as incomprehensible as the clicking of insects or the song of whales. 

My draft, you would be amused to know, does not hesitate to compare the inestimable Greene's bravery at Monmouth with that miscreant Lee's, for as you would well recall, without him and the dear Marquis, we would have been ended before we'd properly begun. I cannot think of that battle without remembering your own bravery, my dear Laurens, and your conduct afterward, for which I still hold myself responsible, but which nonetheless endeared you to me, if possible, more than ever. It is Greene whom I eulogize, and he is in every way deserving of praise and adoration, but throughout my writing it is _you_ I remember. If, as I am sure, our friend has found you on the other side, be so good as to ask him to toast your old comrade, who now must take on the formidable task of distilling and recounting his many deeds of heroism, in under an hour!

In my last letter I do not think I told you that your father has dedicated himself with more vigor to the plans which Fate left unfinished by claiming your soul before your design could be accomplished. We have exchanged but a few lines on the subject but it seems with each meagre attempt of mine, he grows to understand the necessity. Perhaps one ought to say instead that he has _committed_ to the idea in theoretical terms, and in no small measure because he bears in his heart the knowledge that it was the fondest wish of a dutiful son, but that the _advantages_ of his current situation are still of so paramount importance that he spends more time justifying his own practice than it would take to correct it. I shall keep trying, for your sake, as well as for all those who would benefit by our triumph. My views are, as ever, unaltered and in accord with yours.

Circular are my thoughts, but that is why I take the time now to write to you. Thus my last inscribed here was also my first. Laurens, I cannot believe my luck and providence in my family. My Betsey is a marvel! How she manages our growing brood is an inspiration. I thank God daily that my practice has lately been successful, for I fear soon we will have to make do with far less. I'm told there's to be a Congress at Annapolis sometime following the worst of summer, and I find as I speak with old friends and other Personages that I must answer the call of Duty once more. You know better than most how I am singularly unfit for Public life, and yet, I cannot countenance leaving the forming of this new nation in the hands of those who might--nay, who will surely--craft a weak State for the benefit of their individual interests. For all the times I wrote you imploring you to take up the senatorial toga, I confess, I did not know I was seeking a friend with whom to share the misery and privation that accompanies a life spent among these vipers and thieves. If we thought the Continental Congress oppressive, little can I imagine how the bickersome representatives will ruin our Nation if we do not create a strong, clear Constitution to govern our governance. This unhappy but necessary decision means I shall either be again long from home, or we must face the possibility of maintaining two households, without even the income of one. I fear the implications of pecuniary distress that may cause to my otherwise prosperous family. Yet my beloved girl is never discouraged, even when I am so despondent I find it difficult to push noun against verb and call it rhetoric. She willingly provides all the solace of Paregoros as well as the delights of Aphrodite, so that in her I am the heir to both companion goddesses. Surely I am undeserving of such bounty as she puts forth. 

Do I waken your jealousy? Ought I to assure you, as I ever did before, that my affection for you remains steadfast? If so, then you have no reason to fear. Next to my Betsey there is none other who commands my heart, and four years later, the thought of our intercourse still at times leaves me breathless, like a maid on her bridal night. But even so, I thank God for the memory of you, since it alone reminds me that what is lost, cannot be found again in any other arms but my beloved helpmate's--and hers, while perhaps not so strong nor so scarred, are nonetheless alive, and real, and secure. My dear Jack, I wish you had known but a tenth of that comfort in your other self as I feel in the blessings of Hymen's bower. But again I seem to exult at your expense. Believe me, my dr., I am only expounding because I am so certain that you, of all laudable and good creatures, will feel happiness and comfort, and not betrayal, to hear how complete is my joy in life. Yes, your Alexander here invites doom by pronouncing: Life is good. Now I but await the thunderbolt to prove me wrong.

There: I hear you laughing. Well, if I am to be jeered for bliss in my marriage, then it is a flouting I undertake with far more grace than those I may soon suffer if my Enterprise bears fruit. But these airy edifices must wait for another occasion to take shape. The hour grows late and my draft wants revising before tomorrow's address, so I will conclude this folly, except to say that, my dear friend, you are still very much missed. Do remember me with fondness to General Greene, when you see him, as I am sure you shall. Though with God's help it will be years yet before I join you, still I entreat you to save a place at the Table for your most affectionate friend.

Adieu

A.H.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Frances Laurens married Francis Henderson and they had a son named Francis. (Trufax.) She also petitioned Congress for back pay for her father, since he had served without drawing pay in order to help the war effort save money. 
> 
> You all know which letter JCH was modifying, right? ([this one](http://founders.archives.gov/?q=%20Author%3A%22Hamilton%2C%20Alexander%22%20Recipient%3A%22Laurens%2C%20John%22&s=1111311111&r=1&sr=Laur), of course.) 
> 
> For the purposes of filling in headcanon, my concept is that JCH destroyed all the post-mortem letters as well as several other "missing" letters that either Laurens or Hamilton referred to in their correspondence, but that Hamilton was not lying when he said that during and after the war, letters were lost. It's entirely possible that some of the letters which Founders.archives.gov lists as "not found" were legitimately lost or accidentally destroyed--but we can also blame JCH if you prefer!
> 
> Despite the way the Hamilton Musical (bless you, LMM!) portrays the Gay Trio, Hamilton did not know Lafayette or Laurens before joining Washington's staff. He came on as an aide in early 1777; Laurens and Lafayette both arrived in the summertime of that year, within a couple months of one another. I hope that clarifies timing issues that may confuse the reader who is only familiar with the show.
> 
> The stuff about Angelica Hamilton is, sadly, true. I have no idea when they actually committed her to an institution--it was likely actually *before* Hamilton died--but given that Philip died in 1801 and Hamilton only three years later, it's possible they were still trying to take care of her at home. We do know that Hamilton scoured the planet, basically, for anything that would bring her back to herself, which argues in favor of a longer convalescence at home that may or may not have reached its limits before the duel with Burr. (OTOH, at some point she was able to marry and have children, so... she got better? Which this fic does not necessarily account for.)
> 
> Nathaniel Greene really did die on June 19th, 1786, and Alexander Hamilton really did deliver a [eulogy](http://founders.archives.gov/?q=%20Author%3A%22Hamilton%2C%20Alexander%22%20Period%3A%22Washington%20Presidency%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=10&sr=) for him in New York on July 4 ~~of that year~~ \- but not until 1789 (I originally thought it was 1786 but I can't read). (The eulogy's pretty awesome anyway.) (Martha Washington, Mr. and Mrs. Adams, Jefferson, and a bunch of other dignitaries attended; George Washington, it turned out, ~~felt ill and skipped out partway through the day.)~~ was really ill and unable to attend, but he watched the procession from a balcony. I'm leaving the date just cuz. 
> 
> I really have no idea what Henry Laurens thought of Hamilton. I could only find a couple of letters between them and of course, there was really nothing blatantly nasty--but just extrapolating from what is known, I can't imagine he'd have thought much of the kid who enabled his crazy son's crazy notions....
> 
> I also have absolutely no idea whether William Stephen Hamilton was gay or not. Could be total fabrication on my part. But he never married, and there are studies that show that younger brothers with lots of older brothers are more likely to be gay. So there's that.
> 
> I'm sure I'm forgetting other tidbits and clarifications.
> 
> I will be producing a "coda" of sorts in the modern era, but it may be a while before it's completed. I have to get through some other deadlines first.


	4. Renewal and Restoration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two hundred years later...the song remains the same, the band plays on. But the refrain is new.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Heidi for remembering the 90s somewhat better than I do.
> 
> Trigger warning for AIDS.

**December, 1992**

The phone rang on a wintry afternoon not too long before Christmas. Eliza got to it on the second ring, from the wall phone in the kitchen. She had to repeat her "Hello" before the speaker said anything.

"Hello--um. Is--is this the Hamilton residence?" The voice belonged to a girl.

"Yes. Who is calling, please?"

"Um." The next sound was the unmistakable "click" of the connection breaking; the dull dial tone followed.

Eliza frowned at the receiver and hung it back on its cradle. _Crank call?_ she wondered. Then Juan fussed in his crib by the kitchen table and she went to check on him. A minute later, Alejandro came running in. "Mama, Jaime's made a mess all over the bathroom!" he announced. This was not an unusual pronouncement, as Jaime had been having trouble mastering the trick of potty training, so she turned down the flame under their dinner, scooped up Juanito, and went upstairs to deal with the disaster. She promptly forgot about the call.

Until the phone rang again, about fifteen minutes later.

"Hello?"

"Mrs. Hamilton?" It was the same voice.

"Yes. Look, who is this?"

"I--you don't know me, ma'am, but--my name's Frankie Manning. Um. I…" she sounded horribly nervous, and very young. Eliza could also hear the faint tinge of a Southern drawl, though it seemed overlaid on a flatter, broader accent. 

"What can I do for you, Miss Manning?" Eliza asked, summoning her patience. She hoped it wouldn't take too long; her three children were more than a handful at their relative ages of six, four, and four months.

"Well, actually, I was--I was hoping to speak to Mr. Hamilton about...something."

"I'm afraid he's still at work at this hour. You might call his office, if this is a legal matter?" _Please_ , she thought, _let this be merely a legal matter_. Her mind had begun to supply all sorts of unsavory alternatives which she fervently hoped were not about to be confirmed.

"Oh--no, it's--I--it's not… I mean, it's a personal issue. You see, ma'am, I think he was a friend of my father's."

"Oh!" Eliza said with relief. Then, "Was?"

"My father died, uh, ten years ago."

"Oh, I see. I'm sorry." In little more than a second, Eliza put together a picture that made sense. 

She and Alexander had met while she was working as a nurse at St. Vincent's. In early 1982, she had begun organizing space to hold support meetings for the patients and partners of patients with AIDS. Alex and his partner, and later, just Alex, had been part of the group. He and Eliza continued to see each other long after his own partner succumbed. Alex was comfortable in his bisexuality, though he still had to keep it quiet, but he was something of a rarity. Many victims had been living a more duplicitous double life--lying to themselves as well as everyone else. 

They had known a number of men who had been abruptly and indiscriminately "outed" by the disease, to the detriment of their wives and children as well as themselves. (In fact, she knew a number of wives who were _still_ coping with the revelation that the men they had married had been forcing themselves to live in the closet.) Even in Alex's case, he was still semi-closeted. As far as the firm was concerned, his work with the LGBT community was as a straight ally, not as a member of it. A good portion of his portfolio had been spent fighting to help gay and lesbian couples maintain visitation access, and in many cases, claim spousal rights of inheritance. He also had a tendency to take other civil rights cases. But the firm believed it was simply his outsized sense of justice at work. 

Eliza knew it wasn't just that. 

If Frankie Manning's father had died in 1982, though, he had been one of the early ones. Eliza wondered if she'd had him as a patient. It was possible that the young woman had barely known her father, and if father and mother had split over his orientation…. "May I ask you how old you are, dear?" she asked after only a moment's pause.

"I'm fifteen, ma'am." There was a muffled sound on her end and she said in a rush, "I'm sorry, I have to go. Thank you, sorry to bother y'all." Once again, the connection cut off before Eliza could even tell her to call back in about an hour, when Alex should be home. 

She suddenly remembered the frying pan downstairs, and rushed back, Juan in her arms, to manage the busy house. She was quickly overtaken by feeding the boys their dinner and overseeing their baths and bedtimes.

Alex didn't get home until three hours later than usual, and when he did, he barely had time to talk. He went straight to his office, explaining that he had an emergency motion to finish for court in the morning. By the time he came up to bed, she'd fallen asleep. The next day, she'd forgotten all about the mysterious caller.

~*~

**October, 1997**

It's a little before six-thirty on a rainy night when the doorbell chimes. 

"I'll get it!" Alex, Jr., volunteers, and before Eliza or Alexander can stop him, he's running for the front door. 

"Supper's almost ready," Eliza cautions. 

"Right," Alexander acknowledges. He goes to see who Alejandro might be letting into their home at this hour. Not that he's particularly worried, but the boy's only eleven and there have been reports of home invasions not too many blocks away. New York City is safer compared to the 70's, when Alexander first emigrated, but there's still a ways to go.

The girl looks about twenty. She's wearing tight jeans, a short-waisted moto jacket that might be real leather, but is more likely PVC, with a spaghetti tank and lace blouse layered underneath. She's wearing dark eye makeup, and her hair's wet, plastered to her face, despite the red and white polka dot umbrella she's holding.

"Mr. Hamilton?" she asks over Alex Jr.'s head.

"Yes. Can I help you? It's rather late for an office call," he hedges. The grunge fashion looks like it could be authentic, or it could be a rich girl's version of it, but the rain-soaked look indicates she's walked from the station. She would’ve come by car if she had the funds to afford his hourly fees, let alone a retainer. From the look of her, he bets she's hoping he'll take a pro bono. 

"I don't have--I'm not here as a client," she tells him. Her accent sounds southern. "I...I think you knew my father?"

Alexander hesitates. He knows (and knew) a lot of people. But this act reeks of a scam. Still, she does look rather pathetic. "Look, come in out of the rain for a moment," he says, letting her into the foyer. He nudges Alex, Jr. "Go tell your mother I'll be right there, okay?"

"Sure, pops," Alex says. "C'mon, Johnny," he tells another little boy who’s materialized behind Alexander's leg. 

"Hey, squirt, get back inside," Alexander adds. The five-year-old can teleport, he swears. 

Meanwhile, the young lady has crossed the threshold and is dripping onto the tile, shaking her umbrella. "I'm sorry to bother y'all--I reckon it must be about dinnertime. I got a little lost…. I've never been to New York and I missed a subway transfer. Then I got all turned around when I came up to the street and I went the wrong way…."

"Well, that can happen," Alexander says. He feels caught halfway between wanting to be polite and wanting to find out what her grift is as soon as possible. "You didn't tell me your name…?"

"Oh. Frankie. Well, it's really Frances, but everyone calls me Frankie. Frankie Manning."

"Okay. I'm sorry, I don't remember anyone named Manning, so, you must have the wrong--"

"Oh, no, sir. That was my mother's name. My father's was Laurens. John Laurens?"

The color drains from Alexander's face. "There must--You've been misinformed, I'm afraid. John Laurens never had any children."

"Except that he did, Mr. Hamilton. Me." She bites her lip, taking in his expression. "Guess that's a bit of a shock. Sorry. Look, could I...I don't want to disrupt y'all's dinner but maybe I could...come back in an hour or so?"

Alexander recovers himself. "I don't think so, no. I don't know if you're looking for money for drugs or just what, but you've come to the wrong place. And I think you need to leave now."

He frog-marches her onto the stoop and practically slams the door in her face. That done, he flips the deadbolt and leans heavily against the door for a moment, willing his heart rate to slow.

"Pop?" Jay leans on the foyer doorjamb. "You comin'? Mom says time to eat."

"Yeah, I'm coming," Alexander says forcefully. 

"So, who was it?" Eliza asks after they say grace. She begins filling the boys' plates and passing them down the table.

"It was a girl!" Alejandro announces as he hands a plate to Jay.

"Oh? A client? Here?" she arches a teasing eyebrow at her husband, who is already diving into his portion. "And that's young lady, Alex, or young woman. Not a girl."

"A grifter," Alexander insists. "She was trying to scam me." He picks up his fork and spears a bite of pork. "Man, they are getting crazier and bolder every day. Can you believe coming to my home, now? Used to be they'd at least stand on a street corner or pretend to wash your windshield."

"What sort of scam?" Eliza wonders.

"I'll tell you later," Alexander answers around his mouthful. He leans over to help Johnny cut his meat. "Don't just push the carrots around, Juanito. Eat 'em."

"But I don't like'em, Papi."

"Give it a college try, okay?"

"I'll eat them," Phil volunteers.

"Thank you, Philip, but Johnny has to eat his own serving," Eliza says.

"But Aunt Ellie, I don't mind."

"There are plenty of carrots. You can have more if you want, but those are Johnny's."

"How was school today?" Alexander asks loudly, and they go round the table, listening as the four boys report on their studies. He's glad to hear that Phil's getting along well enough in the same school and year as Jaime, though they have been put in different homerooms. His wife's nephew's a recent addition to the household, since the plane crash took out Brad and his wife, but they're doing their best to make Phil feel like a bonafide member of the family.

Later, Eliza goes to their bedroom to feed Will, while Alexander tucks Johnny in (nightlight on, closet door closed, bedroom door open) and then makes sure that Jay and Phil are settled into their bunkbeds with their books ("Lights out in 30 minutes, _chavales_ "). He reminds Alejandro that he can only watch one more hour of TV and only if his homework's done.

"It's done," Alex says breezily. Alexander's not certain he believes his oldest son but he's got no reason to push. "Hey, pop?"

"Yeah."

"Was she really a drug addict?"

"I don't know, _mijo_." He thinks about it. "She wasn't as strung out as some I've seen, but…yeah, most likely." He shrugs. "If all she wanted was to try to panhandle some money, she didn't get anywhere. Don't worry about it."

"I'm not," Alex assures him. "Only, if she was looking for a quick fix, why make up such a weird story? Pop, who's John Laurens?"

"He was a...friend," Alexander tells him. "From a long time ago. Were you listening to all that?" Alexander walks back toward Alex's bed.

"No. Just...Jay said he heard you."

Now he knows his son's lying. He sits on the mattress edge. " _Óralé, mijo,_ sometimes when people are desperate, they can come up with all kinds of things they think people will believe. This woman, she probably thought she could tell me a hard luck story and we'd invite her in. Feed her dinner. Then maybe later we'd let her spend the night, because we're nice people, right?"

Alex nods. "Sure, we're adopting Phil, right?"

" _Sì_ , but Phil's family, though. We wouldn't let a complete stranger stay the night. So she tells us she's related to someone I used to know and now she's not a stranger, _comprende_?"

"Oh, I get it," Alex says, and as always, Alexander's both proud and a little intimidated by how quick-witted his son is. _That was me,_ he thinks, and offers a silent prayer of apology to his sainted mother's memory. Alex continues with his newly discovered scenario. "She lies about her identity so we accept her, and then robs us blind? _Six Degrees of Separation_ or some shit?"

"Maybe, yeah, and don't swear," Alexander says without venom. He wants to toe the line between being honest with his eldest, and giving him nightmares. "Or she strings us along for a while. Or she's got a junkie boyfriend she lets into the house, and _he's_ the one who robs us. Or she steals a key and in two weeks, they invade our house. But we're not going to let that happen, are we, _chico_?"

"Nope," Alex agrees with supreme confidence. 

"You and me, we'll keep Mamá and your brothers safe, right?"

" _¡Desde luego!_ " Alex says happily.

" _Vale, querido_. Don't forget to brush your teeth." He leans over to scrub Alex's hair affectionately.

"I won't. But Pop?"

" _Aì, mìjo_ , what?"

"Who _was_ John Laurens, then?"

Alexander sighs. "He's no one you need to worry about, okay? Bed in forty-five."

"Okay."

"Not too much MTV. And no HBO."

"Okay, okay!" Alex rolls his eyes.

After another hour or so of work in his office, Alexander creeps back upstairs to the master bedroom. He stops on the way to flick off Alex's TV and settle the covers over his sleeping son, as well as to make sure that the two nine-year-olds have also fallen asleep. In their room, Eliza's putting Will down again in his crib. After Juan was diagnosed with asthma as a baby, she won't use a separate nursery anymore, and she always has a monitor whenever she's not in the same room as the baby. She's leaning over the crib now, winding up one of his toys to help him settle into sleep.

"So?" she asks as Alexander shuts the door. "It's way later, now."

"Whoever she was, she did shit research," he says with a shrug. He joins her, bending into the crib to kiss Will's forehead. "Of all people, she claimed to be Jack's daughter."

Eliza stiffens at the name. "No wonder you were a little spooked. Are you okay? Did she have any proof?"

"I didn't ask, I just told her I wasn't buying and she needed to go." Whether he's all right or not, he doesn't say. He turns away to remove his watch and organize his cufflinks and tie tack for tomorrow.

"Hm."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Oh, no, I know that look, Bets. That's the look that says, ' _Aì, mi_ , my husband's such a _burro_.'" He tugs off his chinos and button-down shirt, exchanging them for a pair of pyjama bottoms. "C'mon, lemme have it. What would you have done?"

"No, you're probably right. Only…. Look, if I were a kid, how would I have any way to know that John Laurens was your former partner? She could just think he was a platonic roommate."

Alex nods. "Right, like I said: shit research. I mean, of course, she'd have no way to know _that_ , but it's a fact that he never had any children. My bet is she just thought I'd be off-balance enough to let her in. Maybe I'd take pity on her, looking like a drowned rat and all. She timed her arrival just as we were sitting down to eat. No way this wasn't planned. It almost worked, too."

Eliza shrugs and one strap of her nursing nightgown falls off her shoulder. "If you say so." Her brow stays furrowed, though.

"What?" he asks again.

"I don't know. I feel like there's something familiar about this, but I can't think what."

" _Déja vu_ , probably. Anyway, we'll never see her again," Alex says on his way into the bathroom. 

When he comes out, Eliza's flipping through a catalogue. "Hey, do you think we should get a PowerMac for Alex for his birthday?"

"He wants a Sega," Alexander reminds her. He climbs under the sheets and sidles up to her.

"No way. If we spend that kind of money, I want him to be able to do homework on it, too. Bad enough you let him have his own TV."

"Hey, we made a deal with the kid: if he got straight A's last year, he gets a TV set. So long as he keeps up the grades, he can keep the TV. Anyway. A computer's not a bad idea. Let me ask around the firm; someone's bound to have a recommendation. I bet Aaron's got the latest, greatest for his daughter." Then he's stroking her shoulder where she still hasn't fixed her strap. He pulls the catalogue out of her hands. " _Oye, estado pensando en ti todo el día…._ " 

~*~

A couple of (very pleasurable) hours later, although they should both be asleep, neither one is. When Will makes his first small-hour noises, the ones that they know mean hunger, Eliza's up in a flash. "I'll get him."

"It's my turn…"

"No, I've got it," she assures him. "I was already awake. Go back to sleep."

"I…. No, I'm up, too. I think I'll just go--get some work done." He clicks the light on to find slippers and a bathrobe, and he's heading downstairs before she can ask questions he doesn't want to answer.

John Laurens. Just hearing the name still stabbed him in the gut and the heart, every time. It rarely came up, but there were a few acquaintances from back then--men who, like Alex, had somehow escaped the "Gay Plague"--and some who had not, but who were coping with the cocktail as well as they could. The Laurens family was in the news now and then, and there might be a passing mention of Jack, though less now than when his father Henry had still been alive. 

He has always found it much easier to bury the memories, along with all his other traumas, but that means that when John's name resurfaces somehow, it hits him like a bullet wound. That this girl had chosen to invoke John Laurens, of all people, shakes him to the core.

When he fires up the computer, the clock on the screen confirms that it's 2:14 AM. He only makes a half-hearted attempt at a paragraph before turning on the modem to connect to the Internet. In a few slow clicks, he opens Netscape and logs in to AOL. Even at this hour, there are a few users he recognizes in his usual chat rooms, but not the one he's eager to talk to. Leaving his status visible, he clicks on the email icon and creates a new message. 

He's just about to hit the "Send" button when a notification pops open on his screen. _Speak of the devil_ , Alexander thinks, and switches to the messenger window.

[ _Bonjour! Que fait-tu réveillé? Non, ne me dit pas: travails, toujours._ ]

[Bonjour yourself. No, I'm not working. Shows what you know. How's Paris? How are the Lafayette women?]

[My girls are all fine, last I checked. _Lire ta postes éléctroniques, Alexandre. Je suis en San Francisco cette semaine._ Did you forget to mark your calendar?]

His calendar is on a cork board behind him, still on the month before. Sure enough, when he flips the page, Gil's visit to the U.S. is there in bold red marker.

[Didn't forget to mark it. Just forgot that it's already October. You're still coming to NYC in two weeks?]

[ _Oui_. I was, in fact, hoping you would check in tonight. I've the all-clear from Adrienne if you're still free. Gramercy Park, Friday &Saturday nights, _n'est-ce pas_?]

[ _Absolument_! Bets says it's okay by her. Usual precautions, of course.]

[ _Mais bien sûr. Je me réjouis de te voir, cher_.]

[ _Moi aussi_. Actually, I'm really glad you showed up when you did… I was in the middle of writing you an e-mail.]

[Oh?]

[Yeah.]

He pauses, trying to decide how to bring up his question. 

[Alex? _Et-tu la-bàs_?]

[Yes, I'm still here, I just…

[Something happened this evening and--I really miss Jack.]

[ _Je sais._ It's okay, Alex. What happened? _Dit-moi tout_.]

Alexander quickly copies everything from his email concerning the girl on his doorstep. He types out a few more sentences, besides. When he's finished, he realizes that he's been a lot more upset than he'd been admitting. Frankie's bringing up a ton of grief he thought he had put to bed years ago.

[ _Mierda_ , sorry.]

[ _De rien_. Alex, he never said anything about a daughter. You know if he had ever mentioned it, I would have insisted he tell you.]

[Yeah, it's not that--I can't think she's on the level. But it's not even the scam that--it's…. God, am I some sort of terrible person because part of me was _relieved_ that she had no idea Jack couldn't have had a kid? I mean, if he had, Jack would have-- well, obviously, he would have wanted to help. To be involved, you know?]

[I do.]

[And here I'm just thinking about how well I've covered my tracks. It feels like I'm dishonoring his memory or something.]

[Alex, if you wish it to remain _privée, elle est l'affaire de personne, non_? If you wish it to be known, then you ought not have to conceal your _histoire--ou ta préférences. Mais, notre monde, n'est pas parfait_. You do not dishonor him if you

[ _Comment ce dire_

[ _ensevelit_ ]

[Veil? Obscure? Hide? Shroud?]

[shroud! _Exact!_

[You do not dishonor him if you shroud your past to protect your _famille_. Would the firm object?]

[ _Yo no se_ , and I don't plan to find out. I guess it doesn't matter, considering I've packed her off.] He glances at the toolbar and notes the time. [ _Mira_ , it's really late. I should go but we'll talk next week? And I'll see you in two.]

[ _Bon_. Go if you must go. My love to Elizabeth. _Dormes bien, cher. Je t'aime_.]

[ _Te amo_ , Gil. Tell Adrienne when you talk to her that we miss her. _Adieu, a bientôt_.]

The conversation leaves him, if possible, more anxious than before. Gilbert duMotier Lafayette was perhaps the only person left in the world with whom Alexander could speak entirely candidly on the subject of Jack. 

Gil had come to the States when he was 16, only two years younger than Alexander himself. They had both qualified for the same university program, though Gil was paying his own way and Alexander had earned a full ride through a combination of scholarships and loans. But where Alexander was already tri-lingual and then some, Gil spoke a bare minimum of English. Alexander had tutored him. They had bonded over their mutual loneliness in a strange country, their orphaned status, and...their interest in both men and women.

Throughout their university education, they had been each other's clubbing partner, wing man, and friend-with-benefits...until Alexander had met Jack. Gil had seen, understood, and far from being jealous, graciously first made room, then later, allowed their relationship to revert to close friendship, clearing the way for Alex and Jack. Shortly afterward, Gil moved back to France to take over his family company, and within a year he had started popping out kids with his adorable school sweetheart, Adrienne…. And when Jack died, only two things had saved Alex. First, Gil dropped everything to come be with him for a few weeks. Second, Alexander had already met Eliza. 

As he goes upstairs, he thinks about Gil's advice. He's right--it's no one's business who his lovers are or have been. And though he shouldn't have to hide it, hiding it for strategic reasons doesn't mean he's closeted...much. It's not like it was in the '80s. Maybe he's being a bit paranoid. But he knows his partnership was contentious, and it'll still be a few more years before he's an Equity Partner. They could manufacture a cause and cancel his contract if they really want. Moreover, Burr, Madison, and a bunch of other counsellors are sniffing at his heels. The very last thing he needs is for someone to make an accusation...especially when there's any basis in it.

They can't necessarily prove anything, he tells himself, but then again, this is one court in which they don't really _need_ to prove it for the damage to take hold. Besides, how did the saying go? Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you. Or as Alexander likes to think of it, you're _not_ really paranoid if they really _are_ out to get you.

He's still wrapped in his thoughts when he returns to the bedroom in the attempt to snooze a couple more hours before it'll be time to start rousing the children for school. He expects Eliza to already be back in Dreamland, herself, but instead, she's sitting up with the bedside light on.

"Alex, I remembered what I wanted to tell you," she says.

"About what?" he mutters. He climbs back into bed.

"About that young woman. How old did you say she was?"

"Uh...I dunno, late teens? Early 20s?"

Eliza pulls herself up higher against the headboard. "Did she tell you her name?"

"Manning. I never knew anyone named--"

"I think maybe you should listen to her."

"What?" Alexander sputters.

"No, listen, about five years ago, I got two really strange phone calls from a girl named Frankie Manning, who was looking for you because she thought you knew her father."

"You never told me that," he says, partway between accusation and amazement. 

"I know--it didn’t seem important, so I forgot all about it until tonight. I've been trying to recall what was so familiar about this evening, and...well, there it is. She called twice. The first time, I think, she was just too nervous to say anything and she hung up right away. The second time...I think she was interrupted. We didn't get very far at all. But she sounded vaguely Southern and she said she was fifteen and that her father died in 1982."

"Jack died in 1982."

"Yes. And he was from South Carolina. And Alex...if she was fifteen in 1992, then she was born--"

"In 1977. Which means she was conceived around '76. Before I met Jack. Shit. Jesus…."

"He might not have even known about it. It was the '70s, after all."

"I mean. Fuck. He did say he'd tried to have sex with women, but I just figured he meant he couldn't get it up."

"Nice."

"Sorry." He twists his mouth into a wry half-smile, his usual response when his defensive humor misses its aim.

"It's okay." Eliza puts her arms around him. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah."

He settles into her, resting his head on her shoulder.

"You're spending the weekend with Gil in two weeks, remember?" She offers it like a prescription for depression.

He laughs, a brief snort of acknowledgement. "Yeah, he just reminded me."

"Oh? Oh."

He squeezes her reassuringly. "He happened to be online."

She sighs. "I hate those chat rooms--"

"They're just a convenience. It's safe, I promise. Anyway, it was on Messenger."

"If you say so. I wondered why you were down there so long. So. Did you have 'the cyber sex'?" She "air-quotes" the phrase with her fingers but it's clear she's teasing. "Or were you more sensible? Did you admit to him this whole thing has you missing Jack?"

He smiles up at her sadly. He doesn't deserve anyone so understanding and insightful, and certainly not finding two such in one lifetime. Three, really. " _Te amo, cara._ I love you so much, you know that?"

"You better." She leans in and kisses him, to which he responds enthusiastically. Before they break apart, however, he knows she can taste tears that aren't hers. He shouldn't still feel so much grief, amid all the happiness they share, but he can't help it. "Baby, it's okay," she whispers, and instead of pushing further, she holds him until he falls asleep. 

 

~*~

 

The next day at the office, when Maria, his administrative assistant, brings him his third coffee, she says, "There's a young woman here asking to see you. No appointment."

Alexander's stomach flips. "Let me guess. About 20 years old?"

"Yes, in fact. Rather pretty."

"Blonde, medium build, Southern accent, dark eyeliner?"

"Yes, but--"

"Jesus, she's got _cojones_." Despite Eliza's bombshell last night about her previous calls, Alex has had time to think this morning. This Manning girl could still be completely off-base or outright lying. But it's probably best to find out. "What have I got today?"

"Settlement meeting for Brown v. Wunther in an hour; the Livingston appeal is due at the end of the week; there's a partners' meeting after lunch; and the White House call at three."

"Okay, I can't see her today, then, but I don't want a scene. Tell her...tell her I've got a lot going on today. Ask if she can make an appointment next week."

"Ham, I really think you should see her," his secretary (administrative assistant, he reminds himself) says with a strangely maternal tone.

"Listen, this isn't anything for the firm. It's….she showed up at my home last night. With supper on the table. And then she claimed--" his throat caught.

"To be related to the Laurens family?" Maria fills in for him.

"How...did you know that?" he asks.

Maria picks up the newspaper sections B through G, which had been sitting unread on his desk. She pulls out the Lifestyle section. The above-the-fold picture features Martha Laurens Ramsay, in town for the launch of her new book. Jack's sister. And in the background, Alex clearly recognizes the young woman from his doorstep last night.

"World-famous author and activist, Martha Laurens Ramsay, daughter of the late Congressman Henry Laurens, and her niece Frances Manning, arriving at Park Avenue Books," Maria reads the caption. "This says they'll only be in town for another couple days. I've been talking to Frankie, Ham, and she's a good kid. And I'll tell you something else. I don't think she wants her aunt to know she's here, either."

"Shit," Alexander says. She still might not be legit, he reasons, but his objections sound hollow, even in his head.

"Well, adoption cases can be like that," Maria agrees. "So…?"

Alexander sighs. "Okay. Gimme a minute?"

"For you, handsome, anything." She winks at him and, dropping the paper on the cluttered desk, saunters away. Her vamp act produces the desired chuckle, but it doesn't ease his tension.

He steps over to his bar for half a shot. It's only 9:30 but he feels the need for a little Dutch courage. He straightens his cuffs, pulling the heavy links free of his blazer sleeves, then adjusts the knot in his tie. He's the only Latino in a senior position at the firm; this isn’t Miami or even LA. She is a complication he does not need. He buzzes Maria to let her know he's ready to face his visitor.

Unlike last night, Frankie Manning dressed today in a professional-looking suit: tailored, one-button jacket, paired with a pencil skirt, and pumps. She's coiffed and styled perfectly, too, apart from her fashion-forward dark nail polish, and the dark lines that frame her eyes more appropriately for a nightclub than an uptown law firm. 

"Miss Manning," Alexander stands as Maria conducts her into the office. "Can we get you anything? Coffee? Water?"

"No, thanks. Mr. Hamilton, I'm sorry I barged in last night--"

"That's...quite all right, Miss Manning," he says pointedly, crossing to the door as Maria passes through it, and shutting it behind her. As soon as the door's shut, he drops the phony smile. "And if you're sorry about barging in, then why are you doing it again?"

Her purse slips off her shoulder. "Excuse me?" she asks. She decides to hold the purse instead of hook it back on her arm again. "Mr. Hamilton, please, let me explain." She fiddles with the catches on the bag. "My mother's name was Martha Manning. Does that mean anything to you?"

"No, I told you before, I never knew anyone named Manning. And if you've somehow convinced the Laurens family that--"

"Mr. Hamilton. Please. It was hard enough last night, and then this morning to convince myself to try again, just...please. Hear me out?"

He can tell she's close to crying, and that's the one thing that would make this drama, if possible, even more awkward. "Fine," he says, running a hand through his hair. He checks his watch. "I'll give you five minutes."

He drops into his chair behind the desk and gestures to her to sit as well. She takes her seat daintily, and he has to admit that she doesn't carry herself like a junkie. Not even a white-collar one. She reaches into her purse and draws out an old letter.

"Like I said, my mother's name was Martha Manning. She...she died when I was four. Um...heroin, they said. But she left this letter for me, for when I was old enough. In it, she told me that she'd had a one-night stand in 1976 with a man named John Laurens, and that she would never have told me about him at all if she hadn't been sick. She didn't know much about him except that his father was some sort of Congressman from Georgia or North Carolina or something. One of those red states, you know?"

"South Carolina," Alexander says absently. "Where were you born?"

"New Jersey. It's where my mom grew up. My grandmother lived there still, so my mother moved back in with her when she found out she was pregnant."

"Then how did your mother and John meet?"

"She was living in the Village, an artist. She said she met him on a blind date. They went to the movies and then they got a couple drinks after and…. Well, here. It's probably easier if…." she holds the letter out for him to read.

He accepts it, scans the lines quickly, and hands it back. "This says she wasn't sure your father's last name was Laurens. Why are you so certain?"

"Well, the thing is, NJ DYFS was trying to find out anything they could about my birth father, based on this letter and some information my mother gave the social workers when she was in the hospital. Her side of the family's gone--I mean, her mother died when I was a baby, and they couldn't find her father. They located Congressman Henry Laurens, though, and eventually he had them do DNA testing." She produces another piece of paper: a lab report. "I'm a match. There's a 98.67% probability that John Laurens was my father."

"Okay, let's say that's true," he says slowly. He's wondering how come he never heard anything about the long-lost granddaughter of a Congressman, but even as he thinks to ask, he knows why. Laurens might have been able to keep it out of the news cycle, depending on how he'd handled it. "That still doesn't explain why you came to see me."

"Mr. Hamilton, my grandfather died five years ago."

"I know." He pointedly does not offer condolences. It surprises her, but she recovers and goes on.

"Uh…. Well, sir, I'm sure you'll understand that I always wanted to know more about my father. My Aunt Patsy adopted me officially, back in 1985 once Grandpa was sure that my mother's story was real, but...Grandpa would never talk to me about my dad. It was a forbidden topic. My aunts didn't really know him well enough to tell me much. I mean, they were pretty young compared to my father. And all my grandfather would say is that he turned his back on the family in 1975," she pauses and Alexander realizes that he has scoffed at this notion, aloud, unconsciously. But she quickly goes on, "...and that I wasn't to ask questions about him. Shortly after Grandpa died, I even went through his things and found an old letter my father wrote to him. The letter indicated that you and he were roommates, and that was around the time I was born. I even tried to call y'all, when I found that. I mean, I called Information and found out you were still in New York, and I got your number and I called. I talked to your wife, really briefly. Only I--I couldn't go through with it then. I've tried to live with not knowing. But I just... I need to understand. About my father. So, when Aunt Patsy said we were going to New York, I thought I'd just slip out while she was busy and, and find y'all. I thought.... maybe y'all know what happened to him?"

"He died, Miss Manning." Alexander fights to keep his voice hard and steady saying it. He stands up. "If that's all you came to ask, then--"

"Mr. Hamilton, I _know_ he died. In 1982. I know he died. Pneumonia's what I've been able to find out, but I can't get anything more from the hospital." She watches him for a reaction but he's schooled his face to show nothing. "What I want to know is… Was it also drugs--like my mother?"

"No," Alexander said softly, "It wasn't drugs. He wanted to be a doctor, he wasn't interested in drugs. And I can't talk about this here." He stands up, grabs his overcoat. "Are you hungry?"

"It's not even ten o'clock," she says, confused.

"Yeah. C'mon, there's a little place across the street." As he passes Maria, he says, "I'll be back in a bit."

"Wunther and Brown," she reminds him.

"I know. I'm going to get Miss Manning an ice cream float," he jabs with ill-timed, vicious humor, ignoring the young woman's blush.

He conducts her out, stone-faced in the bullpen and all the way down the elevator. When they hit the street, it's still crowded, but no longer the levels of rush-hour busy it was earlier. As soon as they're outside, she continues.

"Well, what else can you tell me about him? My grandfather never told me why my father left. Why were you so sure that my dad never had kids? He was gay, wasn't he?"

"Keep your voice down," Alexander mutters. He doesn't answer until he's brought her into the coffee shop across the square, purchased two cups and two pastries, and they're sitting across a formica table from one another. "Yes. He was gay. That's also why your grandfather kicked him out in '75. 'Turned his back on the family,' that's a laugh. Your grandfather cut him off when he wouldn't go to law school, and then kicked him out when he found out Jack liked men. I hadn't met him yet. In fact, if he and your mother hooked up in '76, I hadn't even met him then yet, either."

"So you have no way to know whether I'm telling the truth," she said, eyes widening. She adds so much cream to her coffee that it's almost as fair as her skin.

"Well…." Alexander leans back in his chair. He begins to systematically and inattentively destroy his pastry, not eating it at all, tearing it instead into fragments of crust. "I've been thinking about it since you showed up last night. I believe that back around that time, Jack was probably desperate to cure himself. He knew how Henry felt about gays. If Henry had threatened to disown him or was withholding funds at that point already, then John knew how hard it was going to be to afford to keep going to school on his own." In fact, Jack had never complained about being hard up for cash, but Alexander knew there had been times when his sudden change of status had chafed.

"Knowing your father, he probably made some sort of deal with Henry to get back in your grandfather's good graces--if he could pass for straight. Maybe he thought sleeping with your mother would...would fix him." He takes a sip of coffee to force down the lump in his throat. "And you do...resemble him, a bit. Around the nose, the jawline. The eyes, under all that eyeliner. Yeah," he admits finally, "I believe you."

She lets out a breath in relief. "Oh, thank you. I wasn't sure what else I could bring to convince you."

He grunts by way of apology. "Well, anyway. Yeah. Your dad was my...roommate. And he was gay and he was in med school, trying to pay for it on his own because your grandfather had cut him off. And it wasn't pneumonia that killed him. Or rather, he wouldn't have had pneumonia if he--" he cuts off his tangent, tearing what's left of his croissant in half. "Miss Manning. He was susceptible to the pneumonia because he contracted AIDS in May, 1982, and was dead by September." He swallows hard, and pushes the plate away.

"Oh." Her look of pleased edification melds into one of surprise, sadness, and fear. "I'm sorry, if it hurts to talk about it. I thought, when they said pneumonia, it might be that, but I didn't--"

"You understand why I did not want to discuss this at my workplace. Or in front of my family."

"Yes. Yes, of course, I--I'm really sorry. I wouldn't have...only Aunt Patsy really was wigging out about my dredging up the past, and--God. AIDS." She stirs her coffee and adds more sugar. "That was...really early, wasn't it?"

Alexander nods. "There were about 450 deaths that year, mostly in California, but some here, too. Your father was one of them. That was well before we really knew what was even happening, much less how to treat it or protect against it."

She absorbs this information behind bitten lips. "Please, if y'all don't mind…. What else can you tell me about him?"

He checks his watch. "I've got a settlement meeting in less than an hour and a full calendar this afternoon. Tell you what. Can you come over tonight? For dinner. I'll call my wife."

"I think so. Aunt Patsy's got an interview or something, and they want us both for a cable access appearance tonight... but I can tell her I don't feel like going."

"You don't have to lie about it. I could call her if you like." He's a little surprised that at 20, she still acts like a child. Then again, at her age, he was already leading rallies to advocate for civil rights and he'd been mostly on his own for six years. 

"It's not really a lie. I mean, I love my aunt, really, but, she can be sort of a strong personality. But anyway…. You'd better not. My grandfather may be gone, but the family's still pretty...sensitive about...things."

"Meaning race? or meaning sexuality?" he asks, eyes narrowing.

"Both. Either. Take your pick."

"Well, look, I may have been born in the Virgin Islands, but I've been a partner at Putnam, Knox, and Greene for two years, and I write speeches for the President, so...I don't think you have to worry about your aunt doubting my...credentials." He amends what he was going to say just in time.

"No, just your connection to my father."

"We were room--"

"Uh-huh. So y'all said. Look, Mr. Hamilton, I appreciate the offer to help, but don't, okay? I'll be available for dinner, I'd love to come. Just let me be the one to handle my aunt."

Suppressing a flash of anger on her behalf, Alexander nods. "Okay. I'll call Bets after my meeting and tell her we'll be eight for tonight."

~*~

"So, you do believe her now?" Eliza's voice, even over the phone, sounds doubtful.

"Yeah, I do. _Mira, cariña_ , I gotta go, but I'll be home early today, around 5:30? And we can talk about it then."

"What do you want to tell the boys?" she asks.

"Only what they need to know," Alexander says after a moment.

"Alex--"

"I know, I know, but...if they start talking at school, their friends tell their parents...before you know it it gets back to one of the senior partners and suddenly…."

"Suddenly?"

"Suddenly they start to wonder about the motivations behind my portfolio."

"That's never bothered you before," she points out.

"Well, it's been...a little tense around here lately. Plus I think I'm about to be asked to help with the State of the Union address. We can save the deeper conversation for after dinner, when the boys'll be distracted. At the table, all they need to know is that Jack and I were friends."

Eliza doesn't say anything for so long that Alexander's worried the connection may have dropped. "Bets?"

"All right," she says, in a tone that means anything but acquiescence.

"We'll talk when I get home, _cara. Te amo_ ," he says hurriedly, and hangs up, barely letting her return the sentiment. Then he lets forth a stream of Spanish he's been holding in most of the morning. 

There's a distinct advantage to being able to swear in a language hardly anyone else in the office can understand.

~*~

As it turns out, it's not Alex, Jr., like he expected, but Jay who has the most anxiety about his news that they'll have a dinner guest. "Alex said you thought she was pulling a Six Degrees on us," Jay says, full of suspicion, while they help tidy up and set the table and prepare for their visitor.

"Yeah, but that was before she proved to me that she is who she says she is," Alexander explains.

"How?" asks Alex.

"Unimportant," Alexander replies. "There's a dozen things she's proven, son. But really, all that matters is I'm satisfied by her evidence."

"Pop?"

"Yes, Jaime," Alexander says to Jay. 

His second son takes a moment to assemble his cross-examination. "Alex said you said John Laurens was a friend of yours, _que no_?"

" _Sì_ , that's true," Alexander answers with a nod.

"And this woman, she says she's your friend's daughter."

" _Sì, mijo_ ," Alexander replies, expecting the next question almost before his offspring can form it.

"So...why didn't you already know she was telling the truth last night?"

" _¡Bueno!_ " Alexander says. "You'll make a trial lawyer yet."

" _Papì_ …"

"Yes?" Alexander blinks innocently, goading Jay.

"Answer the question, counsel!" Jay orders with a child's imperiousness.

Laughing, Alexander says, "All right, all right, _chico_." He clears his throat and darts a glance toward the kitchen door, where Eliza is leaning on the jamb and listening. "The truth is...her father died a long time ago, and he never even knew he had a daughter." _Probably,_ he thinks ruefully. _He_ probably _never knew. If Jack had known, he surely would have wanted to help her and her mother. If Jack had known, he surely would have told_ me _, too…._

"Sorry, Phil, what was that?" he asks, realizing that his nephew is trying to get his attention.

"I asked if her parents were like Thea Burr's--you know, her mom was married to someone else, so she made like the baby was her real husband's?"

"...No, that's not the Burrs' situation," Alexander says. "Thea's mother was married to someone else when she and Mr. Burr met, but they didn't have Thea until she could get a divorce."

"Wash Parke says Thea's _why_ they got divorced, though," Jay points out.

"Okay, we're not discussing that," Eliza says quietly, but firmly. "It's none of our business, is it?"

"No, Mom, sorry," Jay mumbles. He gives Phil a look that is part conspiracy, part good-natured blame. Phil shrugs back. 

"It's still a different situation," Alexander says, shooting Eliza a grateful smile, "but your Mama's right: the circumstances of anyone's birth are no one else's business."

"You're only saying that because your parents weren't married, either, though, were they?" Phil blurts out.

The fork Alexander's placing falls out of his hand, bounces off the plate, and plops onto the floor. The other boys all freeze in their tracks. "What?" Alexander asks, going very still.

Phil looks around at them all. "Well, I--" he shrinks back behind a chair-- "just meant…."

"Philip," Eliza says kindly, "why don't you go to the kitchen, please, and help with the marinade for the stir-fry. I'll be there in a minute."

Phil's all too happy to retreat from Alexander's stormy expression. He almost runs out of the dining room. Johnny's lip trembles from the overflowing tension.

"I'll talk to him--" Eliza offers.

"No, I'll do it," Alexander says sharply. Johnny sniffles. Alex, Jr. hands him a napkin from the little plastic holder on the table.

"Pop, he didn't mean anything bad," Jay says. He ducks down to pick up the dropped fork.

Alexander gazes into his son's open, trusting face, and calms down. He smiles. "No, _chaval_ , I know he didn't. I'm not mad," he says, louder, to everyone. "It's not about that. It's about good manners." He smiles at Johnny. " _Vale_ , Juanito; it's okay, little man. I'm not ashamed of my parents and you shouldn't be, either. Your cousin just wasn't thinking."

"I'm glad you see it that way," Eliza says, though the set of her mouth tells him she agrees with what he's _not_ saying, that Phil's statement is some kind of spillover from things her brother must have said about Alexander. Or possibly she's trying to get him to open up more about his childhood.

She says no more, however, and they move on. Eliza goes to the kitchen. Alexander follows a moment later.

"Uncle Alexander, I'm sorry."

"I know. Philip, you know that there are loads of kids whose parents aren't married, right?"

"Yeah."

"And that it doesn't necessarily mean their parents don't or didn't love each other?"

"But sometimes it does," he protests weakly.

"Yes, sometimes. There are thousands of kids who are very, very unfortunate. But in this family, we have respect for everyone, no matter what. Understood?"

Philip nods. He's trying not to cry and not doing a great job of holding back. 

"We're very glad that we're in a position to take care of you, Phil. Do you think we think less of you because your parents passed away?"

"No," he says.

"Right, we don't. It's not your fault and it's not right to judge anyone else based on something they can't control. Okay?" Philip nods. If he makes any verbal reply, Alexander can barely hear it. But he doesn't insist. That was one of Brad's methods, he knows. "Cool. Got any homework?"

"Diditatschool," he mumbles.

" _Guay_. Why don't you and Jay go watch some TV before she gets here."

"Really?"

"Yeah, _vamos_ ," he says indulgently, with a light tap on Philip's arm.

Phil starts to go, then rushes Alexander to press a quick hug around his hips. "'M really sorry," he insists, though the sound is muffled by his face pressing into Alex's shirt.

" _Lo sé, mijo_." He pats Phil's back paternally and locks eyes with Eliza. Then he detaches the nine-year-old from his legs and sends him gently toward the stairs and the family room.

"You're doing better and better with him," Eliza says, coming in for her own hug.

" _Aì, chingando cogerme_ , this day…." he sighs and wraps his arms around her gratefully. "Your brother was a real _cabròn_ , you know that?" 

It's a moment before she can say, "Don't speak ill of the dead. But...yeah, he could be." She remains in the circle of his arms, enjoying the momentary lull, before she says softly, "So, are you going to tell her everything about you and Jack?"

Alexander stiffens but doesn't let go. "I don't know. She already knows he had AIDS. She knows we were roommates. She knows Henry Laurens disowned him--I don't know how much more she needs to know."

Eliza pulls out of the embrace. Her hands grip his arms a little more tightly. "Alex. She wants to know who her father was. You can tell her that."

Alex sets his jaw, shakes his head. "I don't know if I can. Losing him…. Meeting you in that hospital support group was about the only thing that got me through that. I don't know if I can stand to talk it all through with a stranger. I mean, I barely talk about it with Gil, and he was part of it. Or the beginning of it, anyway. And if anything got back to the partners…."

"Don't worry about the partners. It's 1997, not 1984--literally or metaphorically. Besides, you're not HIV positive. And you aren't going to be, right?"

"Right," he assures her. On another occasion, he might have gotten irritated that she chose this moment to verify that he's still being safe. This time it just reminds him of the guilt he always felt that it was Jack, and not him, who had taken the bullet. "You do realize that if they find out we're not completely 100% monogamous, that I go in chat rooms and meet up with certain old friends for weekend specials, my HIV status won't be what matters?"

"I said, I'm not worried about that. And if you believe this woman is Jack's daughter, then you shouldn't worry about it, either. You're thinking way too far down the road, _bǎobǎo_." She sighs. "You don't _need_ to explain that you were lovers, if you don't want to, Alex. But, I think if you put yourself in her place, you might want to know." She kisses the tip of his nose. "I'm also thinking about our boys. They should know who their father really is, too."

"When they're older--if they have questions of their own--"

"You'll have already shown them that non-heterosexual orientation is something they should hide, that being different is something shameful. Alex, I know who I married. I know how we've managed to balance things out. And I know what Jack meant to you. Don't you think they should hear how important he was to you, too?"

He doesn't answer, merely buries his face against her shoulder for a long time. 

~*~

Frankie arrives for dinner at quarter to seven. She's ditched the suit and looks more comfortable now in skinny jeans, slouchy boots, and a long-sleeved black shirt. Jay lets her in, takes her coat, and offers her a beverage, playing the perfect host. They introduce the other boys. Johnny's enthusiasm comes across as extreme, until Alexander explains that his bedtime has been extended in deference to their visitor.

"Oh, well, compared to staying up an extra hour, honey, I'm nothing special," she assures the five-year-old.

It starts off well enough--Eliza's there in a tick and smoothes through the niceties with practiced, polished manners. "I hope you like stir-fry," she says. 

"Love it," Frankie replies. 

"Well, come in and sit down, then." They recite a brief grace and Eliza dishes up rice and mixed veggies and meat from the wok in front of her. Plates are passed until everyone has a portion. 

And then....no one speaks for a while. Frankie covers the awkward silence by complimenting Eliza's cooking. 

"Family recipe," Eliza answers, smiling. "I'm glad you like it."

"Carrots, again," Johnny, sitting across from Frankie on Alexander's other side, mutters.

"Life sucks, son," Alexander says without rancor. "Eat up."

"Thank you again for having me," Frankie continues, ignoring the minor drama over the carrots. "So, how...how did you and my father meet?"

There's a ripple of excitement around the table as each of the boys waits to see how Alexander will react. His smile is tight. "We can talk about that after supper," he says. But the boys are vocal in their disappointment.

"Oh, c'mon, Pop," Alex, Jr. says, clearly the appointed representative of the young mutineers. "You never talk about when you were younger."

Alexander shoots a glance down the table to Eliza, who, as he fears, is no help. Her innocent face blinks at him with unspoken challenge. 

"Well, we were both in our first year of grad school at NYU, in 1977." He approaches the story tentatively, picking and choosing the parts he wants to discuss in front of the boys, the parts he can trust himself to talk about without anger and sorrow and loss bubbling up again. It's not that he wants to conceal the fact that he's bisexual, he tells himself. It's that...they won't understand how things work between him and their mother if he discloses his complicated history. "He had taken a year off after finishing college, supporting himself as an illustrator. Once he'd been able to prove he wasn't getting assistance from Henry anymore, he qualified for loans and he could attempt his first year of medical school. I was still tutoring up at Columbia. Money was tight for both of us. We answered the same ad for roommates in an apartment building in the Village."

"What's it like to be in the family of a Congressman?" Alex, Jr. asks suddenly. "Have you ever been to the White House? Our dad's been loads of times but he never takes us with him."

"Alex," Eliza starts to chide, but Alexander has never been more proud of his son for shifting the focus. Hell, he's rarely been more pleased to _not_ be the focus.

"It's all right," he assures all of them. "That's really all there was to it."

Thanks to the boys, and the human tendency to talk about oneself if given the chance, they get through the meal learning more about Frankie than about Alexander and John. She's a Senior at Mercer University, majoring in Psychology with a minor in Art. She thinks she might want to be an art therapist. She and Eliza talk about health care. Eliza decided not to go back after Will was born, but she'd been part-time between Jay and Johnny, and again briefly before Johnny's health scare, and she still keeps up with journals. She pointedly mentions Columbia's medical school, and NYU's, with a strong implication that Frankie'd be welcome to stay with them if she came to interview. Frankie's grateful and interested, but isn't sure she'd make a Columbia cut. She doesn't have a boyfriend, isn't even sure she wants one. "They're sort of a bother, really," she says, and both Alexander and Eliza applaud her perceptiveness. She prefers Frankie instead of Fran or Frannie because when she was little, her favorite band was "Frankie Goes to Hollywood," not because she's a tomboy or anything. Right now, she loves Alannis Morrisette and hates Celine Dion, but she's been listening to a lot of Tupac and Smashing Pumpkins, which elicits an impassioned plea from Alex, Jr., for the CDs he'd put on his Christmas list ("See, they're not too bad!" he insists, while Eliza points out that the language advisory is on the labels for a _reason_ ). She's been to the White House, with her grandfather and her aunt, but she didn't meet the President. Yes, she has a car, though not here in the city, it's back home. Home is Monck's Corner, South Carolina, where she's lived since she was eight. She attended a boarding school outside of Atlanta since the sixth grade, but it was coed, not just for girls. And so on. 

At first, Alexander thinks Alex and Jay's questions are leveled out of curiosity. It takes three or four of them to realize they are probing Frankie for any sign that she's not who she says she is. Protecting the family. Alexander once again wonders what sort of lawyers his boys will make. Or what sorts of statesmen.

But before too long (and too many reminders to Johnny to eat all the vegetables), they've finished their plates. "There's ice cream for dessert, but if you like, we can wait a few minutes," Eliza says. "Frankie, do you take tea or coffee?"

"Oh, another Coke would be plenty, ma'am, thanks," she replies. 

Before Alexander can confirm his customary request, Eliza reminds him: "Eddie says you're supposed to switch to decaf after six." 

He rolls his eyes. "I'll have a Scotch, then," he says, rising. "Frankie, why don't you come into my office for a bit? We can talk in there."

"Okay."

"Alex," Eliza suggests, "take your brothers up for some TV." The boy groans, possibly as a comment on his brothers' viewing tastes, or maybe at being excluded from the grownup after-dinner conversation. Ignoring his protest, Eliza continues, "Or you can help me load the dishwasher."

"TV's fine!" he says quickly. Frankie and Alexander share a laugh as he leads her into his study. 

"Sorry to have started to ask you questions," she says when he's closed the door.

"It's all right. Here's that soda," he says, reaching into a small fridge under his credenza. He pours himself the stronger drink and brings it to his desk. "I've been thinking about...what to tell you. I wish I could say your father knew about you, but I don't think he had any idea."

"I don't think he did, either. I'm pretty sure my mother didn't expect to--to involve him. I mean, I think she didn't want to complicate things for him." She pops the tab and takes a swig direct from the can.

"He wouldn't have seen you as a complication--" Alexander begins to say. It's not a hundred percent true, but he's confident that John would never have abandoned her if he'd known, and he wouldn't have complained about participating in her life, any more than he'd ever complained about poverty or pain.

"I get what you're saying, but honestly, you know it would have been complicated." She sets down the soda can and leans forward. "Mr. Hamilton, I don't--I'm not looking for you to make my father into some sort of saint. Believe me, I heard enough growing up about all the ways he disappointed my grandfather. I just want to--to understand what he was like without the bullshit Grandpa liked to dish out." 

Alexander snorts into his Scotch. "Fair enough. Your father was... he was very important. To me. To all our friends. He believed in equal rights and nationalized healthcare and--and he wanted to make the world a better place. If he'd ever finished med school, he had this plan to work for Doctors without Borders in sub-Saharan Africa. He was kind, and he could be a hothead, but mostly it was because he was fiercely protective. He's a big reason I have a specialty in underrepresented populations, populations at risk, and he's one of the reasons I've continued to work with queer partners whose rights might be infringed by biological family members."

"And you loved him," she says gently. She sounds older now, wiser, than the kid who showed up at the door just yesterday.

He can't meet her eye. But the way she says it, it's pointless to protest, and he finds, he doesn't want to deny it. Not to this girl with Jack's eyes. "Yes. God, yeah." Impulsively, before he can change his mind, he reaches into the desk and pulls out a letter. "John wrote this when...when we knew it wasn't going to be long. He gave it to Eliza, to give to me after. I...I've only ever shown this to two other people."

"I...I understand. And I appreciate it, really."

He hands over the letter. It's still crisply folded, but he doesn't need to look at it to know everything it says:

> Alex, you're the writer, not me, so this will have to do. I trust Eliza to know when to give you this.
> 
> I don't know why this is happening--has happened. I love that you still want to believe I'm going to get better, go back to NYU and finish med school, and cure this plague. I hate to disappoint you, darling, but we can't all be Alexander Hamilton, unstoppable genius. If you're reading this, you know that it's not to be. You're going to have to fix it, love--not with medicine (even if you can memorize all my textbooks, you ass), but with the law. I don't know when or how we're going to lick this disease. I have to believe that eventually, we will, but meanwhile if we're all going to die like this, then you have to protect our rights. You of all people know how it feels to have unloved, unwanted relations surface out of nowhere to claim an inheritance that shouldn't be theirs for the taking. Make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else. If anyone can do it, it's you. 
> 
> I'm sorry, love. So sorry. Sorry for going out and having fun and getting sick. Sorry for whatever choice it was that brought us to this point. Sorry to be leaving you when it feels like we only just found each other. Sorry we won't grow old together. The only thing that could make me more sorry is if I'd somehow passed this stupid, horrible death on to you. I think there has to be some providence in that. You've cheated death so many times before. Here you are again, you keep living anyway. But I'm glad for whatever strange luck or patron god looks after you, and keeps you alive. I'm not sorry, Alex, that if one of us has to go, it's me. Between the two of us, you're the one who can change the world for the better. God knows you work hard enough for ten men.
> 
> I talked with one of your co-counsels at Schulte, Roth, and Zabel: Oliver Wolcott. He's got my will. There's not much--I'm sorry it's not more--but he says it will hold up. ~~My father~~ Henry won't be able to touch it. Check with Harrison, too, because the check from my last batch of illustrations should have been signed over to you. It'll probably have to go to pay the bills, but at least it's something.
> 
> Last thing. Well, no, two last things. First: Thank you, dear, dear boy. You gave me courage every day. And second: Be good to yourself. Please. Remember that you're not all on your own. You've got other people who love you. Gil, for one, even if he's an ocean away, and don't think I haven't noticed Nurse Schuyler sitting closer to you than necessary! (It's okay to want her, you'd be crazy not to.) Anyway, they'll make sure you take care of yourself, but you have to let them help you. Don't follow me too early. Remember that you've got more to do here before we see each other again. As you say, "Adios", my dear Ham, and all my affection and love. 
> 
> Yours ever,
> 
> Jacky

She looks up with tears in her eyes, and it's only then that he realizes he's been reciting the letter aloud. "Thank you." She hands the page back. "I…. I should be going. I don't want to impose on y'all's time any more, and my Aunt will be getting back to the hotel soon, I expect."

"Stay for dessert, at least," Alexander offers. "And I'll drive you back to your hotel. I don't want you traveling through Harlem alone at night."

"Oh, I'm sure I'll--" she breaks off at the paternal look on his face. "Well, all right. Thanks." 

"Is there...anything else you want to know?" He folds the letter again and sticks it back in its envelope, then the drawer.

"I--" she sniffs. "It's a lot to absorb. I mean, I'd already half-figured--but it's good to know that someone loved him. And that he loved someone that much. I guess I'm sad it wasn't my mom, but…. I don't know, right now it just feels...abstract, you know? I'm sure it'll all hit me and I'll want to know more, but maybe it'll be like this...not something I can take in all at once. But, maybe I could...I could call you? Now and then?"

Alexander takes a deep breath. "Um. That would be…. yeah. Sure. You can call me. Or...do you have email?"

She nods. "I've got a student account at Mercer. At least, until I graduate in May."

"I'll give you my private address."

He scribbles it down on a pad, adding both his private line at the office and, after a moment's pause, the cellular phone he carries. "These are all direct, but only use the last one if it's an emergency," he explains as he tears off the sheet of personalized stationery.

"Okay." She puts the page in her purse. They stand. 

For a moment, Alexander's terrified that she'll want to come in for a hug, but she maintains the distance between them. It's enough that they have reached this much intimacy. He smiles, and for the first time all day, he doesn't feel like pounding his fists into a wall. 

"Let's tell Betsey we're ready for that ice cream."

~*~

"Can I come with you?" Alejandro asks when Alexander tells them he'll be taking Frankie back to her hotel.

"School night," Alexander says.

As if in payback for letting Alex get away with rudeness at dinner, Eliza offers, "As long as you go to bed as soon as you get home, no TV."

"All right, all _right_!" Alex crows. "That's what I'm talkin' about."

Alexander shrugs. "And you say _I_ spoil him," he observes. 

"Well, just don't take too long," Eliza replies. Except that he can see in her eyes that she's hoping he'll use the opportunity to tell both of them more about Frankie's father. To tell Alex about himself and Frankie's father. Maybe he will.

"We'll be back in time for _NYPD Blue_ ," he promises. 

"If you're not, I'm leaving you for Jimmy Smits," she reminds him. It's a familiar threat. 

" _Oye_ , you're already married to him," he points out, spreading his hands at his sides to display the resemblance. 

She laughs at his routine joke, rolls her eyes as always, and hugs Frankie. "I'm so glad we finally met," she says, "and that you got to meet my Hamilton."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it! I realize this coda doesn't exactly fit the "Eliza finds his letters" part of the prompt...but this Eliza already knows, so, I dunno. Consider this a "fix-it" fic of my own earlier chapters. If at first you don't succeed…. reincarnate in a modern era AU to get it right?
> 
> Translations:  
> I tried to make most of the Spanish and French understandable by context, or obvious (Si/Oui, No/Non, Papi, etc.), or to give the translation in the next line of dialogue, but in case you don't feel like popping over to G-Translate:
> 
>  _chavales_ \- dudes / buddies / boys / kids / guys, etc. ( _chaval_ \- singular form ("buddy," "dude," "man," "bro," etc.)  
>  _mijo_ \- "son" (literally a contraction of "my" and "son")  
>  _Óralé_ , _Oye_ \- variations on "Hey," "Yo!" and so on.  
>  _Desde luego _/ _Mais bien sûr___ \- "You bet!" "But of course!" "Damn skippy" etc.  
>  _burro_ \- donkey, ass, jerk, stupid-head  
>  _estado pensando en ti todo el día_ \- "Hey, I've been thinking about you all day."  
>  _Que fait-tu réveillé? Non, ne me dit pas: travails, toujours._ \- "What are you doing up? No, don't tell me: working, always."  
>  _Lire ta postes éléctroniques, Alexandre. Je suis en San Francisco cette semaine._ \- "Read your emails, Alexander. I'm in San Francisco this week."  
>  _n'est-ce pas_ / _que no_ \- "isn't it" / "right" (i.e., "is that not so")  
>  _Absolument_ \- "Absolutely"  
>  _Je me réjouis de te voir_ \- "I'm looking forward to seeing you"  
>  _Moi aussi_ \- Me, too.  
>  _Je sais._ \- "I know."  
>  _Dit-moi tout_ \- "Tell me everything."  
>  _Mierda_ \- "Shit."  
>  _De rien_ \- "No problem."  
>  _...privée, elle est l'affaire de personne_ \- "...private, it's no one's business."  
>  _...histoire--ou ta préférences. Mais, notre monde, n'est pas parfait_. - "...history, or your preferences. But our world isn't perfect."  
>  _Comment ce dire_ \- "How to say it"  
>  _famille_ \- "family"  
>  _Yo no se_ \- "I don't know."  
>  _Mira_ \- "Look"  
>  _Dormes bien, cher. Je t'aime._ \- "Sleep well, dear. I love you."  
>  _Te amo._ \- "I love you."  
>  _Adieu, a bientôt_ \- "Goodbye, ttyl."  
>  _Guay_ \- "Cool."  
>  _Lo sé_ \- "I know."  
>  _chingando cogerme_ \- "Fucking fuck me"  
>  _cabròn_ \- "asshole"  
>  _bǎobǎo_ \- "baby"
> 
>    
> A word on the law firms: Shulte, Roth, and Zabel is a real law firm in New York; I wanted him to have worked for at least one other place for realism, and I thought it would be great to get some association with Jews in since historically, Hamilton was not as anti-Semitic as some of his contemporaries. The other firm, of course, is an amalgam of Continental generals, and is made up. Oliver Wolcott is the name of a lawyer to whom Hamilton had planned to give the Reynolds papers if he had died prior to the pamphlet's eventual publication.
> 
> I hope y'all enjoyed this. It was more difficult to write than the other three chapters combined, and required a lot of reorganizing and no small amount of re-writes to get the story told in a way that did not make me want to slit my wrists from how tedious the draft was. I'm not sure why it was such a struggle. But editing is your friend, so, I hope the result is worth it.
> 
> As difficult as it was for me to hammer this into a realistic timeline (and trim out a lot of chaff), I think this particular modern setting of Hamilton may have more things to say… perhaps circle back to explore where Angelica and Peggy are in this version, and Hercules and Washington and more about Burr and who Maria is in this world, and definitely more about little Philip Schuyler…. And of course, more smexy times with Alex and John. (Sorry there's no porn in this story! There's definitely porn in my Lams arsenal, both modern and historical; it's just not ready yet.) (Also, sorry no Philip I or Angelica (or Fanny Antil) in the kids... that's just the way the timing works out.)
> 
> Meanwhile, thank you so much for reading along. Your kudos and comments are so, so appreciated, even if I don't reply to every single person.

**Author's Note:**

> This work is inspired in no small part by the interpretations used in LMM's Hamilton musical, though the characters are presented in their historical contexts for the purposes of chapters 1-3. Wherever possible, I have tried to represent historically accurate information, but errors made are mine, and artistic license wins over accuracy about 50% of the time.
> 
> Fic inspired by this story: [His Dearest Friend](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5361935) by [DustySoul](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DustySoul/pseuds/DustySoul)


End file.
